Second Chances
by LizzyGal86
Summary: Doctor Connor Rhodes runs into a woman from his past, only to find out she has just as many secrets as him and deeply tied to the city of Chicago and an unsolved crime. Including David Downey and H Voight from Chicago PD.
1. Chapter 1

Connor Rhodes nearly walked into a wall the second he heard the two women bickering.

It was not unheard of for the ED to have its share of relatives that could not agree, or get along. Connor himself had broken up more than his fair share of fights over the years.

Yet, there was something about that voice that pulled him out of his early morning slump.

After a hectic night in Chicago's busiest emergency department he had been on his way to get a snack. He needed just a little something to get him through the sudden lull until things picked back up. A few hours were left in his shift and there was never any telling when things would become chaotic. Therefore one ate when they had the chance. Dinner had been hours ago and maybe some fruit and coffee would do the trick.

That was of course before he heard her voice.

It was a voice that haunted his dreams. It was a voice that haunted his nightmares.

He heard the voice when things were at their worst.

It was a voice that reminded him of the biggest regrets of actions not taken, paths he let slip by and at first he wasn't sure he heard correctly. Taking a step back Doctor Rhodes noticed both Maggie and April watching the room where the bickering voices emanated closely, but not overtly. If there was anyone on earth who could pick out people eavesdropping so discreetly it would be him.

Naturally he walked over to them picking up on the distinct smell of cigarette smoke. A perfect conversation starter if there ever was one.

"Is someone smoking in there?"

Two sets of eyes glanced up at him in what could only be surprise. Not so much at his question, but the mere fact he had to ask it. It was the younger of the two nurses, April, who asked, "Do you know who is in there?"

Maggie answered before he had a chance to even respond. "Olya Isakov and Neva Vasilieva."

Anyone who lived in the city of Chicago for the past ten years or so would recognize those names. After all, the Vasilieva crime family was Chicago's most prominent Russian crime syndicate. Ivan 'The Beast' Vasilieva was the head of the family with Neva being his only daughter and Olya his lifelong mistress. The names were familiar to Connor in reputation alone, so he found himself slightly confused. It couldn't be the same woman. Granted he didn't know her actual name. But the woman who haunted his memory and dreams wouldn't have been a mob princess. Surely Ivan would never have allowed his only daughter to crisscross the globe working as a medical contractor.

However, once the bickering started again he found himself doubting his own recall.

"I don't understand why you could not have treated her Neva. You're a doctor. This is just absurd…being left alone in this room. I haven't received treatment this neglectful since my childhood."

"I'm not a doctor. How many times do I have to tell you that? I also do not possess the gift of x-ray vision. Nor am I an orthopedist which Natalia is going to need. If you're going to complain you might as well have the driver come pick you up. I told you this would take a few hours."

It was her, of that Connor was certain.

"Where's the chart?"

Both women gave him a look.

Connor held out a hand.

"Doctor Manning has already been paged. She'll be down from Pediatrics soon." Maggie informed him with an eyebrow raised high. Yet when his hand remained outstretched she relented and handed over a tablet.

A few swipes of his finger later and the reason for the visit became obvious.

To confirm his suspicion, or prove he needed something to eat more than he realized, Connor pushed off the nurses station and headed towards the cracked doorway. Curtains had been pulled to give the women privacy were yanked open on his way in.

Sure enough a downright boney woman in her sixties with a silver bob, in a floor length fur coat, dripping with diamonds and wearing what appeared to be a silk nightgown sat on the stretcher smoking a cigarette. Beside her sat a little blonde haired girl clutching her arm in a pair of pajamas as well. Her heavy winter coat was in the arms of the woman known as Neva Vasilieva.

"Ma'am you cannot smoke in here," were the first words out of his mouth. Surprisingly enough they were the first time he had to say them in his hospital career.

Two other surprises greeted him.

One was indeed Neva. She was the woman he knew as Miss Black. It was without a doubt the same woman from Iraq, Dubai, Riyadh and the UAE. Not a doubt remained in his mind. He would recognize that hourglass figure, that unusual wavy caramel hued hair and those surprisingly dark blue eyes. What was the bigger surprise was the way she looked at him, as if he were a perfect stranger. It threw him off balance as only she could.

Neva said something to the diamond clad woman in Russian that had the woman Maggie referred to as Olya shouting right back. After which she then put out her cigarette in the stretcher angrily. Following which Neva looked right at Rhodes with a perfectly calm voice that betrayed her, "We had an accident. Natalia fell from her bunkbed and I suspect the Radius and Ulna have been fractured."

One look at the little girl was all that was needed to confirm that suspicion. Still an x-ray would be required.

Maybe he was wrong?

It'd been known to happen on the rare occasion.

So he went to the child who looked up at him curiously with those same blue eyes. "Good morning Natalia. My name is Doctor Rhodes and I am going to be taking care of you for now. Can you tell me what happened?"

Though her eyes were red from crying the little girl didn't sound very upset at all considering the fact the bones in her wrist were visibly broken beneath her skin. Connor only knew a few people who were capable of calming even the most hysterical patients. That person stood mere feet away from him with her arms crossed over his chest, her face a blank mask and her head cocked at what could only be described as a clinical angle. Her eyes were all for the little girl who was obviously family.

"I fell off the bed. I'm never going to another sleepover again," Natalia told him. A look of unease crossed her face when he grabbed a pair of gloves.

More Russian was spoken from Neva again. Though it seemed to be directed at Natalia as she seemed to relax ever so slightly. Her grip on her broken wrist loosened enough to let Connor look it over.

After flicking her cigarette in the general direction of the trashcan Olya turned her attention on Connor, just as April came in the room. "How long will it take to get this casted up? I don't intend to stay here long enough for her to catch MRSA."

"Olya!"

A smile tugged at the corner of Connors lips, as the woman known as Miss Black to him dropped her face in her hands completely mortified. While it was no laughing matter. It did for some reason amuse him. An assuring smile was fixated on the blonde haired child, "No need to worry Natalia. The only thing you'll be leaving with is a hot pink plaster cast. How does that sound?"

Natalia perked up at mention of a pink cast.

A protest was on Olya's lips that died as another figure came into the room. Connor caught movement from the corner of his eye. It was April who confirmed the presence with a greeting, "Doctor Manning…"

Olya waved her hands fast enough to make her diamonds clatter together, "Oh no, no, no!" Thus causing an almost instantaneous reaction around the room as recognition dawned on April. Neva appeared just as confused as Connor. Fur rippled in a white wave, "That one needs to go. We'll take this male doctor. I don't want the Mandated Reporter anywhere near my Natalia! Not after last time! I'll take this child to another hospital." A flurry of Russian followed that obviously was directed to Neva.

Connor glanced at April who's knowing dark eyes widened in alarm.

Smiling warmly at the child she quietly whispered to Connor, "Doctor Manning reported Natalia's last visit here to family services. It turned out she was being bullied at school."

A slight raised eyebrow was his only reaction at that tidbit of news.

Nothing was said in response not because he didn't have a solution to diffuse the situation. But because that perfectly calm voice despite the enraged silver haired woman mere feet away. In Arabic she spoke in a manner that let him know she was still working on maintaining inner peace and harmony. " _If there is an orthopedist you can refer us to…like, right now? I'd be eternally grateful._ "

Connor glanced over his shoulder, far too pleased with himself considering the situation at hand. Especially with the additional threat of a lawsuit by Olya. " _You're in luck. Not only do I play poker with him. He's just upstairs._ "


	2. Chapter 2

She was just where he expected her to be, seated in what had to be the world's most uncomfortable chair. Minus her fur clad diamond encrusted buddy, Neva Vasilieva sat with her legs crossed looking downright uncomfortably pensive. Somehow Connor suspected that her expression had nothing to do with being up all night, or finding herself in the surgical waiting area.

A cup of coffee in each hand, Connor Rhodes walked over and sat down beside her, having just clocked out and acquiring the caffeinated hot beverage.

Neva glanced his way with her eyes alone.

When he handed her a paper cup, she accepted it with a few words of thanks.

It was mostly an empty area except for a few nervous people and two massively large tattooed men. Conner pegged as Russian bodyguards. Momentarily he was glad he kept his scrubs on.

"You never told me you were from Chicago."

Neva sipped her coffee before contemplating an answer. It was just how she liked it. He had remembered. Hazelnut coffee with cream, no sugar. "You never told me you were 'that' Rhodes."

He frowned just as she thought he would before slouching down in the chair. An attempt was made to make himself comfortable. "If I would have known, I would have asked you out to dinner far sooner."

A smile finally tugged at Neva's lips. It warmed him in a way his coffee could not.

"And I would have had to politely decline that offer too, no matter how tempting Mister Rhodes. It would be enticing too. But you know I don't date. And I may be moving to the glorious warm weather of Miami soon. So it just simply is not meant to be."

Ignoring parts of that, Connor glanced around, his dark hair sliding in his eyes. "Where's your chain smoking little friend?"

Neva laughed, no, cackled.

She had a laugh that belonged on a witch in a Halloween movie.

Rolling her eyes she sighed and finally risked a look over at a man she'd long ago decided to avoid like the plague. Not that there was anything wrong with him. Oh no, he was a perfect specimen. Neva just had unique tastes. While Connor would likely be fully onboard at first, she found that men just never really stayed. She was a handful. Her family was too much. She was difficult to manage. Her brothers were scary and then there was Olya to contend with, all before she became legal guardian to her niece.

"Olya had to go home and change. Apparently she needed her daytime fur. I don't know…she said she'd be back and I'm afraid she was serious."

Unfortunately Connor knew exactly what that meant. He nodded in understanding.

"What about dinner between two friends?"

Neva rolled her eyes, "You know I don't have friends. Besides, dinner would cut into my me time. I have to teach my niece how to summon the forces of evil tonight. The villagers won't torment themselves."

That easy companionship settled back between the two. It was something that Connor had always enjoyed and longed for when they were apart.

Even back when she had been working and he had her phone number, he looked forward to her snappy texts and long calls. That lively nature he was used to slowly uncurled. Not that he could blame her for the stressful situation. He sipped his coffee in silence for a while, appreciating that no awkwardness followed.

It was not long until a figure clad in scrubs appeared from behind the operating room doors. A middle aged Hispanic man with a kind face, greying hair and navy scrubs.

Both Connor and Neva stood up, eager but not worried as Doctor Sanchez had a grin on his face. With a nod to Connor he smiled broadly. "She did beautifully. One plate, six pins and a screw. She's on her way up to recovery. If she does well she'll be discharged this afternoon. I'll have my office call to schedule an appointment for later this week."

A breath Neva hadn't realized she'd been holding escaped.

"Thank you. Thank you so much, both of you."

Doctor Sanchez nodded kindly, "She did a good job. I'll remember this one for a while. I'll order something for pain for her and a cast should be put on later today if everything goes well."

A few more words were spoken until Doctor Sanchez headed back into the doors he emerged and Connor gestured towards a hallway. "Come on. We'll go wait for her down the hall."

Neva cocked an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be going home to bed? Besides in a few hours my brothers will be up. Trust me, you don't want to be anywhere around here when they come to visit. I don't want to be here when they visit. I don't want to be here when my father comes to visit and he should be getting up around now."

Family problems.

If anyone knew what that was like it was Connor. Sympathy bubbled up. The fear of regret was also there too. If he went home and to bed there was a chance he'd never see her again.

With a motion of his hand he compromised, "Give me your phone."

Neva's eyebrows reached new impressive heights.

"If you call my phone I'll store your number. That's the only way I'll go home."

Neva pursed her lips before finally relenting and digging into her jeans. After procuring her iPhone and getting past the password she handed it over, waiting less than patiently. As Connor worked his magic on her phone she glanced around the pretty sparse waiting area. Only when his phone began to chime from within the depths of a backpack he'd left on a waiting room chair, did he relinquish her device.

After which he handed it back over, "I'll be in touch."

"Don't tease me," Neva snapped back without a second thought, bringing out a devilish smile on his face.

XIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIX

The smell of cigarette smoke woke Neva up from a restless sleep. It was a sleep that had been broken up by visits from hospital staff, Natalia moving around and the television that her nine year old niece flipped through at what had to be record speed. Perched uncomfortably in a chair with her legs up and sock covered feet resting on the hospital bed, Neva opened her eyes to see Natalia poking at a neon pink cast on her wrist.

"Is someone smoking in here?"

What woke her up stood in the doorway to Natalia's hospital room.

A rather large somewhat goofy looking man in greyish doctors coat seemed disturbed at the obvious smell of a Marlboro.

Glancing around, Neva noticed the bathroom door was shut and the vent was on. Olya's half-length chocolate fur coat rested in a nearby chair with her massive leather bag resting on top of it.

Feigning ignorance Neva blinked the sleep away seeing it was already three according to a clock on the wall.

Upon seeing Dr. Charles MD stitched onto the jacket above Psychiatry. Neva asked, "Who in their right mind would smoke in a hospital? Are we free to leave? Are you the one who's going to release Natalia?"

Peering in the room, Doctor Charles didn't see anyone actively smoking. Yet, he could have sworn he smelled it. His gaze traveled to the small girl who watched him with big blue eyes and a relative who also possessed eyes in that striking dark shade of blue. As the adult by the side of her bed made a valiant effort to fully wake up but failed, the little girl cocked her head to the side. "Are you up here to make sure I'm well-adjusted and safe before letting me go home with Auntie?"

An amused smile curled over Doctor Daniel Charles's face.

Slowly he walked into the room, clasping his hands together he nodded, "Indeed that is part of my job here. But you needn't worry. I really did come in here looking for smoke. I'm Doctor Charles. What's your name?"

"Natalia," she answered, wiggling into a sitting position. Once she managed to get herself upright she amended, "Natalia Vasilieva." Her blue eyes shrewdly watched him for a reaction which always came when her last name was brought up. Natalia was not disappointed. A raising of his eyebrows was his reaction.

"Well Natalia, it is very nice to meet you. That is one really pink cast."  
Pleased she glanced down at it. With her other hand she tapped on it softly. "Auntie said she'd sign it when we got home."

"She did? Well that's nice."

A few feet away the bathroom door cracked open making the smell of smoke stronger. Out came a pink Chanel clad Olya adjusting her rings and the front of her pink jacket. A cloud of fowl nicotine tinged smoke followed.

Doctor Charles frowned in disapproval, "This is a hospital. No smoking."


	3. Chapter 3

Connor Rhodes walked to the front desk of Chicago's most exclusive apartment building. If not, it was in the top three for the services it provided Chicago's elite. Behind a marble topped desk was a very young twenty-something, who looked at him very closely and approvingly as he approached.

All of twenty with a cute button nose and freckles. The blonde receptionist with a nametag reading Becky smiled brightly at him. "Hi! How can I help you?"

Setting a plastic bag with aromatic takeout on the counter Connor might have flirted slightly. "I'm here to see Neva Vasilieva. I have her dinner."

Almost instantly Becky paled considerably.

Just as Connor expected.

Leaning against the counter he rested his elbow on the cool marble and leaned in. "Look, if it's cool with you, I can run up. I'm a friend of the family. I wouldn't want to get you in trouble for letting the food get cold while you try and find someone to venture up there."

"Oh my Gawd! Would you? That'd be awesome. Like I'll give you the code now…" Grabbing a pen and a pad, Becky wrote down the floor number and keypad code. Then she leaned over the counter brushing against Connor's arm not at all subtly. Also allowing her to wave at a man standing beside one of three elevator doors. A gesture was given between the two. Becky then wiggled back into her standing position behind the counter. "Ok you're good. Go on up. Stan will let you on the elevator. Punch in this code here into the keypad inside and then floor sixteen, cool?"

"Thanks. You're the best," Connor winked.

Becky blushed and beamed, then checked out his posterior encased in dark denim jeans when he strolled across the front lobby area of the apartment building.

Connor gave an elderly man probably very near three digits a wave on his way into the elevator. Following Becky's directions he entered the code on the keypad, ignoring the phone number that she had included in her directions.

It was a quick elevator ride up to a floor that had only two apartments.

16B was Neva. A bunch of little hearts surrounded the apartment number.

Easily he found the door which could have been any nondescript white door with numerous locks. Connor knocked and waited and then he waited some more. He was about to knock again when he heard movement behind the door.

"Who is it," came a young voice.

Natalia.

"It's me. Doctor Rhodes from the hospital."

Sounds of movement came from behind the door until the distinctive sounds of numerous locks being flipped. When the door finally cracked open the little girl peered at him from on a stepstool. Her golden hair was dark and wet from a recent shower, or bath. She had on a pair of purple pants with a t-shirt that had a panda bear on the front, complementing the cast. She narrowed her eyes at him, "I remember you. Auntie is in the shower. Did you bring me dinner?"

Clambering down the stepstool she closed the door after him and began to flip all the locks.

Connor counted seven.

"I did. I brought dinner for you and your aunt. How does your arm feel?"

Seeing a vast collection of shoes around the front entranceway, Connor kicked off his sneakers.

"It doesn't hurt," Natalia told him before motioning for him to follow her down a hallway. She led him right into a very large very modern kitchen. "You would think it would hurt. Right? Being a broken bone and all. I guess after all the drugs the hospital pumped into me it shouldn't hurt. I'm not even supposed to be up…I promised Auntie that I'd stay on the couch while she's in the shower."

Setting the plastic bag on the counter, heavy with food, Connor held a finger to his lips in a promise of silence.

Natalia peered up at the takeout.

"Your Auntie's in the shower?"

Natalia nodded in answer.

"Well we don't want you to get in trouble. Why don't you go have a seat on the couch? I'll go tell your aunt I've brought dinner."

Not sensing anything wrong, Natalia pointed in the general direction of where her aunt could be found, before heading in the other direction towards the living room. Connor watched her to be sure she safely made her way onto the couch. Only then did he go in the direction she had motioned. After which he had little difficulty finding a hallway that led past a home office, a guest room and what was obviously Natalia's room based on the amount of purple and unicorns.

At the end of the hallway was a cracked door.

Connor paused in his tracks.

He could see into the room through a two inch space. A floor length mirror caught his eye and made him pause. Not because of any discomfort or desire to give Neva privacy. He got an eyeful of her backside. She was dressed in a pair of baggy jeans with a spectacular cheetah bra, bent over and digging through a dresser drawer. But it was not that that made him pause, or that made a cold chill sweep through his body.

Neva's back was covered with scars.

Even though they were faded and far from fresh, they were distinctive. Connor could not make out specific details even from his distance away. He could however see they covered the majority of her back. There were so many of them that they covered her back and crisscrossed from the sheer amount. Some looked like dots and there was a large one that was half hidden beneath the waist of her jeans.

Connor backed away from the door and the way he came. The need to give Neva privacy, retreat and regroup to fight another day was strong.

Once Connor found Natalia on a plush microfiber couch watching 'Law and Order' he plopped down on a nearby chair. After sinking down into it sumptuously, he made a mental note to ask where Neva had bought it at.

Natalia glanced over at him, "Can I get a copy of my x-ray? I want to show it to everyone at school. If I get graphic enough I could make my teacher throw up. She's a complete lite weight."

Connor's eyebrows rose in surprised amusement.

Glancing around, Connor noticed there were framed pictures leaning against the wall waiting to be hung. A few cardboard boxes were over in one corner of the room. Floor length curtains were folded on the top of a ladder waiting to be hung over a large picture window. Said window overlooked downtown Chicago nearly encompassing the entire wall.

"How long have you guys lived here?"

Natalia pursed her lips to one side, "Like…a week or two. We used to live with Olya upstairs until she got the people who used to live in here to move out."

Many questions were on the tip of Connor's tongue. Those questions died when Neva's voice came down the hall, nearing closer with every word. "Natalia? Sweetie? Who are you talking to?"

Both Natalia and Connor peered over the backs of the furniture as Neva appeared a moment later fluffing her wet hair.

At the sight of Connor she stopped dead in her tracks and cocked an eyebrow.

"Doctor Rhodes brought dinner," Natalia helpfully pointed out.

Neva's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"So Doctor Rhodes? What did you bring for dinner?"

Sensing the answer he gave would be vital, he gave Neva his most winning smile. "Indian from the Curry Kitchen."

Slowly Neva nodded in approval. "Good boy. Go set the table."

A smirk tugged at the corner of Connor's lips that he was unable to control. When he stood up he held her gaze that she refused to break. His smirk grew. "Yes ma'am," was his response. After he took his time in taking in her black t-shirt before heading back towards the kitchen.


	4. Chapter 4

"So tell me. Are you married? Are you engaged to Vladimir Putin or something? What's the deal? I've never seen you with a man and you're almost thirty."

Neva rolled her eyes to such a degree her ancestors probably picked up on it.

From where she sat out on the balcony overlooking the city, she had a good view into the apartment and could hear Natalia should the child shout for her. Which was important to Neva. While she may not have been the most maternal person alive, she was loyal and she was dedicated to giving her niece the life the child deserved. A quasi-normal life she had not experienced.

"If only," she smirked. "Not that Vlad isn't a close family friend. I am neither engaged or married. If you must know…my father and I have a understanding."

Connor listened closely. It was obvious Neva had his complete attention.

"When I was younger I was engaged. It ended badly. Oh it was bad. My father and brothers still feel bad about it. It was arranged. Let's just say they severely misjudged the individuals character." Neva was flippant about it he noticed. She even seemed a bit amused at how it had ended as she rolled her eyes, sighed deeply and peered into her empty wine glass. "An-eee-wayyy after that Daddy has never brought up marriage to me again. He never questioned my desire to go to college, nor did he protest to my travels. Between you and me, I think he still feels guilty so we have this silent arrangement we do not discuss. I conduct myself in an appropriate manner and Daddy lets me do whatever I want without mentioning family responsibilities, or such unpleasant things."

Pensively he cocked his head to the side.

Though he wondered if the scars on her back had anything to do with what she had just said. Connor needed to do his own research. He needed to prepare himself on whether or not he wanted to ask that question. Jumping into a dark pit was not something he was eager to do, "What about your brother's?"

A cruel smile grew on her lips.

"Oh my brothers…oh how Daddy meddles. They all have arranged marriages in various stages. There is some dissention about that among them, which I find wildly amusing. Going home is like being on a crossover episode of Doctor Phil and Maury. Of course with Olya acting as the moral compass for our family."

Impressed, Connor nodded.

A equally probing question about his family was on her lips when two things happened that brought an end to their evening.

From its place in Connor's back pocket, his phone chimed, while the sound of someone calling Neva's name from within the apartment echoed. Neva sighed and shook her head simultaneously.

Quietly she muttered, "Speaking of the devil…"

Connor wrangled his phone from his pants and saw Doctor David Downey had sent him a text.

Unusual but not out of the normal.

Normally Downey would call him. Naturally his interest was piqued.

Both stood as a man calling for Neva got closer. Reaching up to pat his chest she found it was firmer, more muscular than she remembered and gave Connor's pecs a rub.

Approvingly she nodded, "This is new…anywho, you're going to have to go. Placating my father will require my full and complete attention." With one more patting rub she hopped up and out of one of the balcony chairs then went inside. "In here Dad. Keep it down, Natalia's in bed."

Slightly surprised by the groping Connor remained seated for a second before hopping up. Far from offended, Connor couldn't quite stop the feeling that he had missed another opportunity.

Quickly he got up and followed her inside, where was greeted to the sight of an older, slim, grey haired man that in no way looked like a notorious crime-lord. Ivan the Beast was not a huge man. He was under six feet with fading tattoos on his knuckles and wrists. Defined wrinkles on his face and his buzzed hair did little to make him appear younger. Dressed in a black suit sans tie the man was equally surprised to see Connor.

Neva spoke up before either man could fully size one another up.

"Daddy this is Connor. He works at the hospital that I took Neva to last night. He got the best available orthopedic surgeon to operate on her today. Otherwise Natalia would have had to wait a day or two for surgery by a doctor that might not have been number one in the state. Say thank you Daddy."

Ivan bristled slightly at the sight of the larger male presence. However he did manage a pained smile. "Thank you for looking after my granddaughter. I will be sure that you are properly rewarded for your efforts. Natalia is…my only legitimate grandchild. She is dear to me." His striking dark gaze landed on his daughter. "I'll go see the little princess while you show the doctor out."

There was no room for compromise in his words.

Ivan reminded Connor of a dictator-like nanny he had growing up.

Connor didn't get a chance to say anything. He didn't get a chance to introduce himself, or to shake Ivan's hand.

Neva told her father, "Don't wake her up. She needs to rest."

Waving her off, Ivan headed off in the direction of Natalia's room after giving Connor a look. As if trying to determine whether he wanted to make him suffer before his murder, or not. It was not a friendly look and as soon as he was out of sight Connor made a noise.

"Oh hush, that's Daddy on his best behavior." She sighed, then motioned for him to follow her, "Come on. We don't want to make whoever texted you wait."

Risking one last glance in the direction that Ivan went, Connor followed a bit surprised by the sight of Ivan.

Over his years of traveling the world and working in places afar, he'd met his fair share of dangerous men, along with numerous members of organized crime. It was never the blatantly obvious individuals he encountered that he had to worry about. It was always the quiet ones that didn't flaunt their connections, or place in their world.

One brief meeting with Ivan was all he needed to determine that Ivan was a very dangerous man. Neva may have called him Daddy and spoke of him with a daughters fondness, but he was not a man to cross.

"Do you need cab money?"

Her words ripped him out of his thoughts.

Sneakers were shoved against his chest so suddenly he nearly dropped them and fumbled to grab them before they fell.

"No I don't need cab money!"

With a salute directed at him, she began to unlock all the locks. Which Connor distinctively remembered Natalia locking to include the slide chain. How the hell did Ivan get inside? That was one industrial looking chain lock. Unlike the one in his apartment, forget the ones in hotels he'd stayed in.

Sneakers in hand, a panic began to rise deep within.

Connor didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay. He wanted to enjoy the unconditional companionship she'd given him. Possibilities of being touched again also tempted him.

"Neva?" He placed a hand on the door before she could open it.

"Connor?" She parroted with a pop of her hip, shifting her weight onto one foot.

Unsure of what to say without sounding needy or desperate, two things he most certainly was not. His phone chimed again reminding him that he needed to go. So he sighed, "I'll call you."

She made a skeptical face that did not fill him with confidence.

When he leaned forward to kiss her cheek in the hopes it would assure her of his earnestness, her hand shot up nearly connecting with his face. Not since his teenage years had he experienced such an awkward almost encounter. He nearly died from embarrassment in that second.

Neva on the other hand could hardly believe it.

Her head cocked to the side. Her expression astounded. "Really Connor? That is the best you have for me? After bringing me dinner and pulling however many strings you pulled to get Doctor Sanchez out of his private practice? You really have the worst timing. You should be happy you're gorgeous and have the whole M.D. thing going for you." Grabbing a hold of his long-sleeve shirt near the collar, Neva pulled him down to her in what could hardly be described as gentle, or romantic. She kissed with a ferocity that was demanding. She did not allow him to return the kiss. It completely took him by surprise. When he tried to return the gesture she nipped at his lips, invaded his senses and he swore she gained a more intimate knowledge of his mouth than his dentist.

As soon as it began it ended.

Neva gave him a push and just when he found she'd backed him towards the door, he suddenly found himself outside in the hallway.

Tasting the wine she'd been drinking on his lips and smelling the floral hints of her soap. He swore she had branded his lips with hers. Not to mention his bottom lip stung sharply from where she'd bitten him.

"Don't you dare call me when I'm sleeping. If you call me when I'm sleeping, I'll block your number." Were her parting words right before she shut the door, locks instantly slamming into place. Once the door was shut a grin spread over Neva's face. Pleased with herself she went in search of her father knowing that Connor would stand outside her door for a few moments.

She knew that because she peeked out the peephole right before she began to shout in Russian for her father.


	5. Chapter 5

"Wait…wait! I'm here."

David Downey glanced up, mere seconds away from locking his office doors. Keys literally in hand. Coat on for the cool autumn night. Messenger bag on his shoulder with plans for a night in on the couch.

"I had to jog over here." Connor explained, "None of the cabs would stop. I was only a few streets up but…"

It was the truth too.

David noticed his flushed cheeks and the slight heaviness to Connor's breathing. "So I see," instead he opened his office door, turned on the lights and motioned for his protégé to go in. "There's a convention going on. I'm not surprised."

In Connor went, feeling even more at home and himself inside of Downey's office.

Tribal and island themed art decorated the well-organized space. Medical books and journals were on shelves. Silence filled the office instead of music from the tropics.

Shrugging out of his coat and setting his bag on his desk, the golden haired doctor glanced over at Connor. His knowing eyes took the younger man in. Something was up. Connor was far too ancy for someone who had jogged so far. "You have a nice evening?"

Connor shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded. "Yeah. It was good. What's up? Is everything ok?"

Smiling, Downey went to his desk and dug into the messenger bag stuffed with medical journals, various notebooks and files. One such file he found quickly and pulled out to hand over. For the sake of time and wanting to get home he summarized the case that had come across his desk hours ago.

"There is patient from New York requesting that we fix the previous repair to her aorta. So far seven hospitals have refused to do this procedure."

Connor's eyebrows rose.

Flipping open the folder he began to look over the hefty amount of patient records.

Downey took a seat on the corner of his desk. "The patient is an active women. Her doctor confirms she is in great health. This would be her second surgery for this issue. The first was done to repair the initial aortic aneurysm. After a few years there was a second aneurysm in the same spot. It's begun to swell again."

Downright impressed at what Downey told him, and the fact that the patient was still alive, Connor kept reading but asked, "So what's the problem?"

Making sure that he had shut the door, which he had, Downey answered in that casual way only he could, "The problem? Well the administrators are nervous about letting us go in to make the repair due to the patients age."

"Oh?" Connor flipped around through the many papers.

"She's ninety-five years old."

Connor looked up at that statement, "Say what?"

"I spoke with her on the phone," David smirked, "She genuinely feels like she has another good decade ahead of her. Apparently her mother lived to be one hundred and four. The patient continues to teach ballet and dance."

"She's ninety-five years old?"

"Yes," David patiently nodded. His face blank. Making it impossible for Connor to determine what the man thought about the case. "Why don't you take all of that home? Look it over. Get back to me tomorrow about it. If not, I'll see you Monday. I need to get some things ready for tomorrow night's black tie gala. Can I assume you're still not going?"

Laughing Connor continued to look over the medical records. Unable to stop one last laugh he shook his head, "Not even if my life depended on it."

Expecting an answer along those lines, David still wanted to ask one last time. "Ok. I'll sell the other ticket. Halstead down in the ED wanted to buy it. This year there are Bull Tickets in the silent auction."

Laughing still, Connor closed the file then held it to his chest. "I would actually pay you to not go to that thing."

XIXIXIXIXIXIX

Beer in one hand and TV remote in the other, Connor had read through the medical records twice and was about to skim through certain parts a third time. Mostly because he was purely amazed. Ninety-five years old and still dancing as well as teaching ballet. A individual in better shape than him was hard to find.

If Downey had not given him the paperwork he would have assumed someone was playing a joke on him.

Mere inches away on the couch sat his phone.

Twice he thought about sending a text but then he stopped himself. Instead, he sat up and dropped the hefty pile of papers on his coffee table. Reaching around he found his laptop underneath the couch.

It didn't take him long to get comfortable again on the couch, power up the MacBook and drain the last of his beer.

After some thinking he finally figured out what to type in the search engine. It had taken a considerable amount of thought too. He couldn't get those scars out of his head. And to the best of his knowledge, there were no current criminals running around Little Moscow cutting women up. An earlier search on his phone had provided nothing about Neva's family, and even less about her private life. Unlike her brothers / father / uncles and cousins, Neva had not been featured in the city's tabloids for bad behavior. Nor had she been involved in a criminal case over her scars.

Which could only mean she hadn't gone to the hospital, or the cops, Connor had deduced.

She had to have been the victim of a crime.

Only a handful of things would continue to impair her relationship with her otherwise close family. Everyone in Chicago knew how strong the Vasilieva's were and that led to several fruitless internet searches earlier in the night.

One idea however continued to nag at Connor, which found his fingers pounding away on the keyboard.

'Chicago Violent Crimes, 2000's, female victim, knife attack,' followed by enter.

As expected the results were many, which he scrolled through while the Weather Channel played particularly soothing elevator music and showcased a weather map of the United States. Most of the results he skimmed weren't exactly promising. None had the amount of violence he was looking for to explain all those scars. Up until he nearly passed the eighth search result. An unsettling feeling knotted down in his stomach. It made him reread the summary of the link before he clicked on it.

Twelfth Victim of the Windy City Ripper Dies was the headline.

While the name of the still unknown killer was vaguely familiar, Connor wasn't in Chicago for those years, so he found himself reading the article closely. Details about the victim being found and her passing away after three days in the hospital didn't so much interest Connor, as what several witnesses had reported.

Statements like, "That lady was messed up. It looked like someone carved up her back. There was blood everywhere." "I've never seen so much blood. It was like she was left on display." "The Ripper definitely did it, I saw the number he burns into his victim's back myself. It was definitely him. I don't know why the cops haven't caught him. How hard is it to find a psycho that likes to carve women up and burn them?"

After four additional internet searches, Connor Rhodes had figured out several things. One of which was that Neva had to have been the Windy City Ripper's last victim. As there was no report of any surviving victims. Plus the numbers went consecutively from one through twelve, according to witness statements to the media. She must have somehow gotten away.

Twelve victims were all that had been attributed to the serial killer before he seemingly vanished off the face of the earth.

All the reported scarring seemed consistent with what he had seen earlier.

People were just way too obsessed with serial killers was his final conclusion.


	6. Chapter 6

Connor Rhodes could not believe it.

He nearly walked into a pedestrian on the sidewalk. Mere feet away he saw the two figures having breakfast, in what was one of Chicago's more retro themed restaurants with food for the soul. All while he was trying to determine if nine o'clock was too early to call Neva. Having thrown an extra two miles in his run that morning, he had managed to get his mind off the ninety-five year old patient, Neva, serial killers and his sister who kept texting about that night's black tie gala.

Therefore it was safe to say he did not expect to see David Downey and Neva Vasilieva seated by a picture window, overlooking a busy Chicago street, sharing breakfast together.

It was just not on his list of possibilities.

Outside of the somewhat ordinary brick building was a growing number of people waiting for a table. Inside may have been decorated with your run of the mill diner items from a simpler time. The food however was some of the best in the city. Using every bit of his confidence that bordered on arrogance, along with his Rhodes Charm, Connor went inside the doorway. Inside he was greeted to white and black tiled floor, atomic era aqua wall paper and smells that made his empty stomach rage in protest.

A red headed, red lipped and red dress wearing hostess with red chunky glasses looked up at him.

Connor pointed into the packed dining room. Without hesitation he lied, "My table is waiting for me." Not that he waited for approval. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he was on his way into the dining room. The hostess never stopped him so he continued on until he spotted the table that he'd seen through the window.

After a few minutes of pushing past patrons and avoiding waiters who looked like they had stepped out of a hipster version of the 40's, Connor made it to the table.

Downey looked up with an amused surprise.

"Morning Stud," Neva greeted with a salacious wiggle of her eyebrows. "Working up an appetite at this ungodly hour? Who was the lucky woman?"

Downey's smile only grew. Turning his attention back to a enormous plate loaded with Eggs Benedict, bacon and a heavily buttered English Muffin, he motioned to Neva's side of the booth they shared. "Join us. We have plenty of food. Drink my orange juice, too much pulp."

Downey pushed the glass across the red table as the younger doctor took a seat.

If he noticed that Neva didn't move over and Connor pressed himself up against her in the center her booth seat, he didn't mention it. Nor did he mention the fact he could smell the pungent smell of sweat from across the table.

"So you do answer your phone in the morning?"

Neva gestured with her fork at him in a threatening manner. Then she turned her attention to her Greek Omelet complete with fresh tomatoes, herbs, lamb and a cucumbers. "Downey can call me at any hour he wants. You…you're an entirely different story."

Hunger overruling any witty banter, Connor grabbed a few pieces of toast that had been untouched on her plate and used them to get a few pieces of her breakfast.

If she were offended by his actions or smell, nothing was said. Instead she handed him the fork from an empty bowl that had contained a divine fruit salad.

"Anyway," Downey continued, after a few satisfying bites of his calorie infused breakfast. "I don't think you should go to medical school. It's not something that should be done out of boredom. You should enjoy a year or two off. Financially you don't need the money." David then dipped a piece of English muffin into the rich creamy sauce. "You can always get work through your company. If I were you, I'd look into organ harvesting. I think you would find that more interesting.

Even though the conversation grabbed his attention right away, Connor focused on eating.

The provided fork was immensely helpful. Before long the crispy sourdough toast was gone along with a solid third of the omelet. It was then that Connor heartily sipped the juice. His gaze darted over towards Neva's hot tea before determining it was not coffee.

"Plus like you said, that little girl needs some stability. After what happened to her parents she needs you to be around. Chicago has a lot of clinics and doctor offices looking for a good nurse practitioner. If you used your working name, there is a chance no one would recognize you. You could have a nice nine to five."

Pensively Neva nodded, after which she stabbed a chunk of lamb Connor had been eyeing. "That's true. I could endure a general practice for a year or so until Natalia settles in."

Connor did speak up at that last bit, "So you're staying in Chicago?"

Neva rolled the piece of perfectly seasoned meat in loose feta cheese littered on her plate. "Until her school year is up. Then we'll decide. According to Daddy, it's irresponsible to pull her out of school mid-school year and run off to live in a condo on Miami Beach. Between you and me…I think he's just jealous. He has to spend all winter here and wants me to suffer too." She then made a show of eating the feta covered lamb.

"So Rhodes, how do you know my partner in crime for the gala?"  
Connor wasn't sure he heard that right.

His dark gaze fell on Neva who informed him, "David and I are going to bid outrageously at the silent auction. If I win the Bulls tickets, I'm going to sell them at exorbitant rates to my brothers. Should I win the cruise around the south pacific, you may never see me again." She then winked knowingly. "Daddy's giving me his legitimate checkbook. His accountant told him he needs to make some charitable donations."

"I…we met at work, over in Dubai," Connor managed, unable to wrap his head around the two of them going to the gala together for door-prizes alone.

"This year there is a basket with all truffle products. Rumor is it's locked in a safe till the auction is over." Downey added almost gleefully. "Which reminds me…bring your Jeep my little Russian cohort. We'll need the extra space if we win. I'm going to want to buckle that basket in."

Neva nodded in approval.

Once she had finished savoring the lamb she added, "I'll have my brother Uri take the doors and roof off just for you."

XOXOXOXOXOX

"So you're going? You do know you're going to have to get dressed up. Right?" Connor pressed, walking side by side with Neva up the sidewalk having parted ways with David. Moments ago the three of them tossed a pile of bills on the table that would more than cover breakfast and the tip.

Neva shoved her hands into her purple leather jacket and smirked. "Indeedy, Olya went with me to pick out my dress. She called it indecent."

"Indecent?"

Neva's smirk grew into a grin.

Suddenly remembering, Connor looked around, "Where's Natalia?"

A small crowd had grown around a crosswalk causing them to stop. Neva rocked back on her patent leather pumps. Glad she'd gone with her favorite pair of jeans which made her bottom look like a masterpiece, paired with a black cashmere sweater, she was pleased with her appearance. Her hair was another story. It'd downright unruly that morning as Natalia had required extra attention. So it had been pulled into a messy braid. "Uri and Alexei took her out for the day. They felt bad about ignoring my texts and calls yesterday. This frees up my day to do laundry and nail drapes to the wall."

A great number of things began to formulate in Connor's mind. With a glance down at Neva, he couldn't help but smile. An offer on the tip of his tongue to help with the drapes. Granted he had no interior design experience. But all those years of Med School were sure to come in handy.

Shouting came from the left.

A small crowd of people headed their way across another crosswalk. The two people in the front had a good distance of space between them and their fellow crosswalkers.

Not surprising considering they were heavily involved in what could only be described as a heated domestic dispute.

So heated that Connor's hand settled around Neva's waist. Using it to move her in front of him and over to his other side, so she was no longer between him and the fighting couple. Said fighting couple grew louder with every passing second. Nearing the sidewalk the male shoved the female. In return the female slapped the male hard enough to nearly send him onto the street. Tripping, but catching himself, a blast of hate filled profanities erupted from him.

As if it were in slow motion, Connor saw the male pull a switchblade from his pants.

It was not long after that, the screams from all around began.


	7. Chapter 7

Olya was not disappointed in her covert surveillance of her lifetime lover's only daughter. Along with that yummy doctor, surgeon, or his professional title was. Her knowledge of the medical profession was limited to what she learned on the ID Channel.

It was her love for the grown woman who was like a daughter to her since Ivan's sixth wife, Neva's mother, had passed away, that kept her assuring Ivan that Doctor Rhodes was perfectly harmless and probably gay.

That morning, Olya had followed Neva to the dump where she had breakfast in with the blonde guy.

In one of her more covert outfit for stakeouts too.

Black leather pants, black snakeskin pumps, black turtleneck paired with her blackest wool trench coat topped off with her big black Jackie O sunglasses. Olya had gone mostly unnoticed that morning, thus giving her a prime view of the scene as it unfolded. Seeing a young couple in the middle of a heated verbal altercation, Olya was not at all surprised to see the male brandish a knife. Nor was she as shocked as the horrified crowd of people when the male attacked his female counterpart.

Olya's gaze instantly looked over to Neva to be sure she was safely out of the way. Only when she was sure that there was no risk of trampling from the fleeing people, she dug through her handbag.

A sense of urgency overcame Olya when she saw not only Doctor Rhodes, but Neva, go towards the deranged man. Another stranger joined them in an attempt to stop the violent attack. Having grown up on the streets of Moscow, Olya knew exactly how dangerous a knife could be in the hands of an angry person. Her fingers wrapped around what she'd been digging for and she surged forward.

Screams filled the street from people attempting to get away from violent scene.

When Olya caught a bright glimpse of blood she ran up to the fighting men, pulled her hand from her handbag producing her Viper Defender. According to the website, it was Mother of all Stunguns.

An angry crackling noise filled the air.

Upon pressing it into the knife wielding man's back he immediately tensed up. It was if he'd stuck a knife into an electrical outlet. After a moment, or two, Olya didn't exactly keep track of time, she pulled back and the man collapsed to the ground. For good measure she gave him another zap.

After which Olya's icy blue eyes narrowed in on Neva. When she was absolutely sure none of the blood belonged to her little protégé, she looked back at the doctor and other good Samaritan. Both men seemed surprised by the turn of events. "Olya," Connor blinked, right before he pointed at the man, "Make sure he doesn't get up. I don't want to get stabbed while waiting for the cops."

Connor then went over to Neva, satisfied that no one else would get hurt. Well, pretty satisfied that only one person would be on the receiving end of Olya's frightening looking device.

Dropping down onto the street just inches away from the sidewalk, Connor took a good look at the bloody scene that greeted him.

His eyes focused in on the many stab wounds then hovered around the worse.

Neva's hand was pressed against the side of the young woman's throat.

"Did you get it," he almost didn't ask.

A severing of the carotid artery was never just a bad thing. It was a mother of all nightmarish things combined with every terrible possibility out there.

"I got it."

"Both ends," Connor clarified.

Neva lifted her face to look him right in the eye. Voice completely composed. "I grabbed it before it retracted. I got it. You work on her lung."

Something that resembled the beginnings of hope began to spark, not unlike Olya's stungun, which sounded back to life that instant. Connor's gaze went back over the woman's bloody shirt as Neva spoke to her in a downright trancelike voice. A glance up confirmed the woman was alive and conscious. Although from the sounds of her breathing, it was painfully clear one of her lungs was filling with blood. Well on its way to collapsing. Connor could hear several people on their cell phones with nine-one-one.

Help was on the way.

Keeping her alive until she could get to the hospital was his number one plan. Part two of his plan was to assess the damage.

Part Two became a reality when a figure broke free from the crowd.

Maggie Lockwood ran through the crowd and at the sight of the one and only Connor Rhodes. She was both relieved and not at all surprised. It figured. On her first Sunday off that month too. Shopping bags in hand she hurried over to Connor. "Doctor Rhodes! I saw everything. What can I do?"

An angel from above was what she was in that moment. Connor's gaze went from her kind face to the plastic bags from Target. Expertly he tore the woman's shirt to get a look at the location of the stab wounds.

"One of your plastic bags. Your scarf too."

Maggie's scarf flew off around the same time she emptied one of her bags on the curb, all while kneeling down and going into Nurse Mode. Her soulful eyes darted up to the woman's neck where Neva's hand rested. Neva's other hand grabbed a handful of cotton that had fallen from the bag. The brand new t-shirt was pressed firmly against the woman's side.

Both Maggie and Connor mentally checked that off their triage list. While neither knew for sure how deep the bleeding wound was, just beneath that stab wound was the liver and that was right after the lung on their checklist.

Distantly came the sound of sirens.

Olya was not a fan.

Sensing the need to flee at the sound, which had become reflexive with her lifestyle. Olya stunned the knife bearing man one more time, before handing her stungun over to a woman, who she was positive had been on an episode of Doctor Phil for uncontrollable anger related issues. Said woman had been hurling insults at the stunned individual. Olya logically assumed that the woman who bore a striking resemblance to Nicki Minaj would not allow the man to escape. Not with how angry at him she was.

Olya then walked around the blood splattered pavement as best as she could before she was close enough to see Connor and one of the nurses from the hospital. Maggie placed a plastic bag on a profusely bleeding wound on the poor woman, followed by a scarf. Not wanting that image to be seared for too long in her memory Olya hunched over and waddled to Neva.

In Russian she asked, " _ **Where's your purse? The cops are on their way. You don't need any trouble**_."

In the middle of speaking with the terrified victim, Neva did not respond right away. "I need you to focus and tell me what your blood type is. _**My wallet is inside my jacket. Take it and get out of here. The closest siren is from a cop car.**_ When you get to the hospital you'll go into surgery pretty quickly and they'll need to know."

Olya did her best not to look at the college aged young woman in the eyes. She reached up under Neva and after some patting around, she grabbed a large cheetah print wallet. Olya then kissed Neva on the top of the head and jogged off as quickly as she could in four inch pumps. Scurry would be a better word.

Not that Neva paid much attention.

The woman who's artery she held between her fingertips gasped painfully. Sucking in the plastic bag. Her big hazel eyes widened in both shock and surprise at the sudden sensation.

Hands flew up as panic set in.

Connor's hand pressed over Neva's on the woman's side. Somewhat firmly he snapped in a tone that made Maggie glance up. Not just so much because of the tone, although she had not heard that out of Doctor Rhodes much at all. It was his use of the Arabic language.

" _Calm her down! She's going to bleed out faster if she's fighting us._ "

Due to all the blood Neva's hand slid out from beneath Connor's with ease. Using that hand she grabbed the woman's chin and snugly held onto it, forcing eye contact. "Lady. Lady! You need to calm down. That pain you feel when you inhale is a bag plugging the puncture in your lung. An ambulance is on the way. You will make it to the hospital. Do you understand me? Can you hear me?" A slight nod was the answer Neva got so she continued while Maggie gave her an encouraging look. Both her hands firmly held her scarf over the plastic bag on the woman's side. "Your lung is going to collapse before you get to the hospital. You can live with one lung. Right now your most serious injury is a severed artery, which I am holding onto very tightly. That means I need you to hold still and to calm your breathing. When your lung collapses it will get harder to breathe, which is why you need to steady your breathing. Concentrate on your breathing…do you hear the sirens?"

Maggie gave Connor a pointed look, "Where did you find her?"

"Dubai," was his answer and for just a minute, that previous hope began to bloom into something. Maybe the woman would live. If Neva wasn't lying to calm her down and the artery was indeed the worst of it.

But the artery was not the worse.

" _She's bleeding somewhere on her back now. My leg is getting wet._ " Neva announced with no hint of any emotion in her voice.

Maggie's eyebrows knit together at the frown on Connor's face. "What is it? What'd she say?"

He gestured underneath.

Maggie nodded knowingly and with a slip of her hand, she searched around until she found the source of the blood. Another stab wound? She discovered upon further inspection it was not. Seeing the knife mere feet away, and that it was not long enough to have gone through, Maggie felt around. A few seconds later she confirmed it was a broken rib. "Rhodes, you better tell one of those people on the phone to have the ED call up to the OR."


	8. Chapter 8

Connor tossed a pair of dark blue scrubs at Neva before pointing to a trash can. "Here…put these on and toss your clothes. I'll go speak with the detectives." The doctors lounge was where he had shoved her at the sight of Halstead's brother roaming the halls.

Neva made a face, "What do you mean? Throw out my clothes? Do you have any idea how much these jeans cost?"

Almost to the door Connor paused.

Mention of her shopping had been brought up on occasion. Usually in jest, as it was not the quantity of items Neva purchased but the quality - or price that he teased her about over the years. Raised eyebrows were given before he grabbed the door and pointed at her in a challenging sort of way. "Hey…if you can sneak your bloody clothes out of here without raising eyebrows…more power to you. See you over by the lunch truck." At that he slid out of the lounge in his own equally bloody running clothes.

Not that Neva had anything to hide.

She just wanted to avoid anything having to do with her family and past, to include local law enforcement, but was not limited to the state agencies.

Glancing around she noticed her salvation.

Or how she would be getting her clothes safely out of the hospital and to the drycleaner. Immediately Neva dreaded having to explain to Mrs. Yune why she still wasn't married and why her clothing would be blood soaked.

After grabbing a lunch cooler from a nearby table, a good sized one that would have been very expensive considering how many compartments it had and how much insulation was sewed into it. Neva felt slightly guilty momentarily. After which she shoved those emotions pretty deep and began to strip her sticky clothes from her body. Every piece was shoved in the cooler before getting zipped in.

She then grabbed that and the scrubs Connor had given her and darted into the bathroom.

A solid ten minutes went by of washing her hands, wrists and scrubbing with the stiff paper towels to make herself presentable.

Her makeup however had held up spectacularly. Lancôme was going to get a glowing review online.

Connor's scrub pants were a little long, reaching the floor. Whereas the top was snug enough that she made the executive decision to let her wavy hair down. Successfully hiding the outline of her bra. Normally Neva would not be opposed to showing off the piece of lingerie, considering how much she paid for it. But her goal that moment was to get out of the hospital before getting pegged as Ivan's daughter.

It was never a pleasant experience.

Cooler in hand, Neva strolled down the hallway, eyes down to avoid making contact with the two detectives speaking with Connor. Fortunately the ED was busy. It allowed her to blend into the chaos. It seemed a multi-vehicle crash involving a school bus had descended upon the department. Not that Neva minded. Swinging the lunch cooler she strolled through the mass of people.

To say the ED was a madhouse didn't exactly cover it.

It did however allow her to slip out mostly unnoticed. Outside the hospital, past the ambulance drop-off were a few food trucks. They were a good distance away to not be a hindrance, but well within eyesight. A nagging urge that she should just go was strong.

Connor knew where she lived.

What with the police presence, she shouldn't have lingered and knew better.

Neva was not one to push her luck after her near fatal encounter all those years ago. She'd come to learn that her intuition knew what it was talking about.

Yet she couldn't quite make herself do that to Connor.

Inwardly she cursed herself for being so weak and pathetic.

Near one food truck she plopped down on a bench, flinging the cooler onto the ground in exasperation with herself. After that she crossed her legs and swore she'd only wait ten minutes. Not a minute longer either.

"I thought it was you."

Neva was almost positive that the universe was pitted against her in that very moment.

Sitting still, she didn't even glance over to see the middle aged man sit down on the bench.

"There was a rumor going around that Ivan's daughter was staying in Chicago. But I haven't seen you at any of your family's haunts. I'm sorry about Dmitri and Jill by the way. They were genuinely good people. They didn't deserve what happened."

A tight expression paired with a nod was her answer.

Not because she despised the police sergeant who sat beside her, no. Neva had a mild degree of respect for Hank. Officer Henry Voight to be precise. As a child she had grown up knowing most of Chicago's law enforcement officers due to her family's criminal occupation. Back then Officer Voight had been a thorn in her father and uncle's side. Yet her family had not found him troubling enough to dispatch of permanently. Neva was not about to call the police if her life depended on it. Though she tolerated Hank to a degree her brothers could not fathom.

Her grief over the brother who had not entered the family business was still too great, too raw.

"So you're raising the little girl on your own?"

She had no doubt that Hank knew Natalia's name. Plus where they were living and very possibly what she had been up to since deciding to stay till summer.

Finally Neva glanced over at the silver haired Hank, who looked a great deal like her father. Only Hank was not covered in faded tattoos, nor did he have that look of guilt in his eyes when he looked at her. Hank screamed multi-generational cop. If she didn't know better she would have guessed his blood ran blue. Old school blue, but blue none-the-less.

"Yeah…she's smart as a whip. Plus not a boy so there's no pressure. Natalia can be anything she wants when she grows up…don't get me wrong. My family is helping. I'm not out in the wilds of parenthood solo. But she gets to be a relatively normal child."

Understanding exactly how the world of Russian Organized Crime worked, Hank laughed at that comment.

His knowing eyes glanced around the area to be sure no one was lingering a little too long or closely.

"So let me thank you for passing along the letters he sends. That's been helpful."

Neva said nothing about the once a month bubble envelope she mailed to the man. Letters she never opened were stuffed in as soon as she found them in her mail. At the end of the month she'd mail them off to the cop.

"Has he tried to contact you since you've been back in Chicago? Phone calls? Any deliveries? What about new people in your life?"

Tightly Neva pressed her lips together before looking around for Connor. "Trust me. After what I did to that man's face, he'd be instantly recognizable to me. And no, no calls or deliveries. Why? Is he back?"

Changing the subject, Hank then inquired, "You remember our deal? If you do come across him, or figure out who he is, I'm your first phone call."

"I remember…you get a two hour head start before I call my father."


	9. Chapter 9

Connor was genuinely surprised to see Neva sitting by his apartment door cross legged on the floor. Flipping through a new issue of Vogue, plastic bag at her side and a sharpie in hand allowing her to make notes in the magazine for future shopping. So far that month's issue was not proving very fruitful.

Though he came to a stop beside her, she never glanced up from the magazine. It very well could have held the secrets to World Peace from the way she looked at it.

"I had to run. Sergeant Voight showed up and was acting sketchier than usual." Then, in all seriousness, she looked up to ask, "Where do you stand on leggings? I'm a firm no…but they're everywhere. It's like some sick kind of protest against denim."

Connor unlocked his door but didn't go inside.

"How'd you find out where I live?"

Neva made a face then looked back at her magazine. "Please, my brothers have already been down here snooping around." She then unfolded her legs and stood, handing him the plastic bag. "If you're one of those people who value their privacy, install this gem. It's a real bear. It'll take my brothers forever to get it open."

Connor actually looked down into the bag.

His tone was tinged with disbelief, "You bought me a lock?"

Neva stuffed the marker into the magazine before rolling up the publication. "Indeed. You'll need it if you continue to associate with the likes of me. Your father came by while I was snooping through your apartment." She even nodded at the surprised look on his face. "Oh I know, I can't take myself anywhere. He left a message on your machine after he knocked on the door for a while. He's totally right too. I am nothing but trouble and my family is even worse."

Disregarding everything she said after his father was mentioned, Connor found himself blinking in almost disbelief. "You were in my apartment?"

Neva nodded knowingly, "Yeah, you should really call your super about the noises your fridge is making. That thing is going to crap out soon. I'd strongly suggest you add some more leafy greens to your diet. You eat way too much takeout."

The disbelief grew into something more tangible, "I can't believe you went through my apartment."

Her eyebrows rose.

Not a hint of remorse visible on her features.

"What? Was that being invasive? How about I come in and watch you get dressed?"

Understanding set in.

Before he could even think of something to say to make it right, she took a few steps toward him, waving her rolled up magazine in a menacing sort of way. "I've never seen you more concerned about my wardrobe than a patient. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful. I am mildly curious when you got a good enough look at my back to figure it out?"

Connor wasn't proud of his choice to lie.

He did however want to avoid any possible landmines.

He'd obviously been noticeable on the ambulance ride over, in a attempt to keep the small of her back covered.

"How many times did we go scuba diving? I didn't put it all together till the other night though."

There, that was a little bit of honesty so it wasn't a complete lie.

Her eyes were appraising.

"How long did it take to heal?"

"Months," was her chilly answer.

"Come on in, I have a couple questions."

"I've already been in your apartment," she replied.

Not about to back down, Connor closed the rest of the distance between them until he was pressed against the front of her, neither of them willing to back down. "I don't remember giving you a choice. Unless of course you want to hash this out right here. I'm fine with that too."

Her eyes narrowed and her hands rested on her hips. "Fine…"

Knowing that nothing good followed those words, Connor pushed the door to his apartment open and motioned for her to go inside. When she stalked by he glanced out in the hallway. He was rewarded with a disapproving look from an elderly lady. The building snoop.

Neva went on in to the apartment she'd formerly been in and set down the plastic bag on a small table near the door where a bowl rested for keys, phones, wallets and such.

She hung onto the magazine.

In the time that it took Connor to step inside, close the door and lock it, he made a snap decision.

"So what is it? What do you want to know?" Neva asked, crossing her arms.

Everything about her stance was defensive. In that moment Connor knew he had made the correct decision. Dropping his own keys in the bow he met her hostile gaze. "I want to take you to dinner tomorrow."

Her gaze narrowed further, surprised by where he was going which was the opposite of what she expected. Not that it wasn't a pleasant change of direction.

"What?"

Reaching out he grabbed the front of her scrub top which he used to pull her closer.

She did not resist.

"Look, I like spending time with you, you like spending time with me. We have fun together. What's the harm?"

Her eyes narrowed.

She of all people knew that Connor was one of the few who would understand the complications that came with her family.

"Oh ok. If we're spending time together to see what organically happens I'm going to need some sort of incentive. I can go hang out and eat out platonically with David. Or one of my many male relatives. What exactly can you offer me?"

Connor gave her scrub top, his actually, a firm tug. Downright thrilled with the words that had come from her lips. Yet he was no longer an awkward teenager. Gone were the days where he didn't exude confidence in nearly every aspect of his life. As if he were bringing up where to order dinner, he made a rational suggestion. "Why don't we go discuss this in the shower? I'll even help wash some of that blood out of your hair."

For a brief moment she pondered his offer.

Not at all offended by the suggestion. She wasn't about to let him think that it was in the bag that easily. Stepping even closer, which in the end was just rubbing up against him she came to realize. "Oh that's a given…what else do you have to offer? I can have my hair washed at a salon by a fabulous gentleman way more entertaining then you."

One more tug was delivered to the navy scrub top. "Come on and I'll show you."

XXIIXXIIXXIIXXII

Connor decided that he'd made the right decision around the time that his phone began to chirp.

He made the executive decision to ignore it while he watched Neva wiggle into his scrub pants by the foot of his bed. If it was his father, that was a call he intended to avoid for the near future.

Connor didn't want to be just friends with Neva anymore.

Especially not after what the building snoop heard them doing in the shower. He was almost positive he'd earned disapproving looks for the rest of the week.

He'd gotten a good up close and personal look at those scars. After that he decided that he didn't want to be the friend that encouraged her to seek healing, or be an understanding and sympathetic ear. If she wanted to keep them a secret. He would keep them under wraps. Platonic was a word he wanted gone from the way he thought about her.

"If you want to be particularly helpful…you could always swing by my place and nail my drapes to the wall like you promised." Neva suggested, wondering just how two of the eyehooks on her bra had been ripped off. Mentally she decided it would be amusing to send him a bill in the mail.

"I'll need a key to get into that fortress you call a home."

She made a face from over her shoulder just as his phone chirped again. It took a moment for her to hook her bra and then yank the scrub top over her head. "You went through medical school. Put that degree and those magical hands to work." At the last chirp she walked two steps and bent down to pick up the iPhone. Connor enjoyed the view from where he lounged in bed. Suggestions that she turn off the phone on the tip of his tongue.

Neva frowned then looked his way, "It's the hospital. Are you on call?"


	10. Chapter 10

"Don't make that face. You'll get a wrinkle." Neva told Will Halstead, who could not be more uncomfortable if he tried in a tuxedo that he could not seem to stop fidgeting in. He had fidgeted when he came by David's home. He'd fidgeted on the car ride over to the hotel, after Downy had been paged to the hospital. A bit of a surprise considering the man was not on call. He'd fidgeted on their way in the hotel and as soon as they entered the packed ballroom in one of Chicago's most luxurious establishments. Will began to tug on his bowtie. Somehow it felt like it grew tighter by the second.

The statuesque red head gave her what could have been considered a panicked look, "How long do we have to stay? I didn't realize this would be so…"

"Formal?" She supplied, mildly amused.

Something bordering on compassion overcame her and she slid her fingers into the crook of his elbow.

A glance around alerted her to the silent auction tables somewhat nearby. "You're a single doctor. These people will love that so make sure to mention it in any small talk. Come on, this way…if we plan this right, we can place our bids…eat enough finger food to qualify as a meal…then we'll eat dessert, see if we won and leave. Painless."

Will's brown eyes did not look convinced, yet he followed her lead. Somehow feeling that all the upper crust of Chicago knew when they looked at him that he was not one of them.

Glancing down at the top of her head and complicated looking up do, he found himself making conversation as she grabbed a champagne flute from a passing waiter and handed it over. "So how do you know Doctor Downey?"

Neva handed Will the glass while sending a nearby woman what could only be described as a predatory look. When the society matron, who had made eyes at the doctor Downey made her promise to look after and be sure he had a nice time had passed, she edged him nearer to the table through the crowd.

"David did surgery on my father and my niece."

Will could not hide the surprise as he sipped his champagne.

Sensing that medical talk would perhaps put him at ease, or so she hoped for the sake of her night. With David summoned to the hospital as well as Connor, Will was all she had left for companionship until she could pick up Natalia.

"Daddy is on his second heart. David did both surgeries. He also wrote my college recommendation letter. Since as you know my family history is somewhat colorful." Will nodded in what could only be described as a polite way. Neva smirked and continued with what she suspected would catch his attention most. "David also operated on my niece. She was born with ALCAPA."

His eyes widened. His eyebrows rose. Will seemed to both calm and show sincere interest for the first time that night. "Really? Did anyone else in your family have the condition?"

She sent him a look that answered his question.

Not before she noticed a couple that recognized her, pointed and whispered to one another.

"Your father…his first transplant?"

Having grown up as Ivan the Beast's daughter it was not a new thing, nor did it bother her, "Good call. It wasn't picked up till Daddy came to America. By then the damage to his heart was not repairable. And well, the second transplant was after almost twelve years after the first."

Another surprised look came from Will.

Neva decided then that she would probably have a good time. She wondered what else she could do to get him to make those faces. "Don't look so surprised. My father may be a criminal but he values his life. He takes good care of himself. He's hoping to get another decade or more out of his second heart." After which she motioned to the tables set up with various pricey forms of fundraising. Prizes that made the heavy donations somewhat less painful for the winners, and tax donations for the losers. "Come on. David gave me a wad of cash to do his bidding."

The two went from item to item, picking out only a few and making remarks about the others as only two people not born into wealth could.

When they were done with their bids a round of the ballroom was made to sample food from the various buffets and waiters. Neva pointed out various people and Will found himself not feeling as suffocated as before.

That was until he noticed a figure heading their way in an expensive tux that did nothing to lessen the foreboding tattoos on his knuckles and the backs of his hands.

Having grown up in Chicago Will would recognize Ivan the Beast anywhere.

Upon feeling Will's muscles tense beneath her hand, Neva looked around until she set eyes upon her father. To avoid any possible discomfort she gave his arm a squeeze, "Will…why don't you go get me a drink at the bar? Shirley Temple. Extra cherries. If anyone asks tell them you're a doctor…you won't have to do any talking after that, believe me."

It did not take much encouraging.

Will was out of earshot before the Russian born man made it to his only daughter. Reaching out, Ivan took both of Neva's hands in his then kissed her on one cheek, then the other.

"Neva my child, you look as beautiful as your mother." He even managed to keep his smile when he asked, "Who is the redhead? I thought you were coming with Downey? I did not have a chance to look into that man to be sure he is no danger."

Hardly surprised she smiled back as if his words were completely rational. "Don't worry about Doctor Halstead Daddy, he's harmless. David was called into surgery. It must have been some type of an emergency since he is not on call. Will came along with me instead." Appraisingly she glanced over at Will's broad back, "He looks strong enough to carry all the door prizes. Doesn't he?"

The smile Ivan gave his daughter was one of paternal indulgence. "Of course, of course. Now come. Sit with me. We need to talk about something. Did Doctor Downey say why he went to the hospital."

Neva was not at all surprised to see that her father had his own nearby table.

Though it was in the middle of a crowded ballroom, she did not fail to notice the beefy guys with tattoos on their hands nearby, or fail to notice that there seemed to be a force field around the table keeping people away. When she took a seat her father sat down in the next one.

"I don't know Dad. He didn't say, he didn't seem to know. Why? Did Alexei get in trouble again?"

Ivan waved off the question.

Not even bothering to glance around to be sure no one was listening, he leaned towards his daughter and lowered his voice. "Alexei is busy tonight. Don't worry about your brother. I wanted to speak to you. I think that you should come home Neva." When she shook her head Ivan placed his hand on hers, almost desperately pinning it to the table. "You and Natalia will be safer at home."

Neva's frown deepened, "No. We're perfectly fine at the apartment and you have Olya there to spy on us."

Seeing her father's frustration made her own suspicion grow.

"Why? What's going on? Why were you asking about David?"

Ivan's grip on her hand grew tighter. As if he were afraid of her slipping away. He looked into his daughter's eyes and saw the eyes he'd given all of his children, even his granddaughter. And yet, he could not quite find the willpower to hold that gaze when he softly told her what she had wanted to know.

"One of my sources from inside the police department called me a few hours ago. A woman was attacked in her apartment building by a masked man."

Neva stilled but said nothing.

"This woman was taken to the hospital and is in surgery."

Neva was still quiet.

"It seems that this woman…well…she had been viciously attacked. She fought back but somehow her attacker managed to burn her with something on her back."

Before she could even begin to process what he told her, Ivan's other hand quickly covered the one already on his. His tone perhaps slightly desperate. "Do not worry." Neva knew that he was indeed worried when her father began to use his own name. It was never a good sign when his English regressed. "Ivan will take care of everything. Ivan has been reaching out to find out if this fiend is back on the streets. If so, Ivan will be sure the man is captured and pays for his crimes."


	11. Chapter 11

"Uncle Alexei is in trouble isn't he?" Natalia asked, big blue eyes glancing up at her aunt as the elevator in their building came to a stop. While she was still learning Russian and not anywhere as fluent as her family. Natalia had picked up a few words in her aunts phone call to her uncle. The voicemail she had left was long, loud and sounded extremely angry. Even for a child, Natalia was no fool.

About to say something quite unflattering, Neva bit her tongue.

Neva then took a deep soothing breath before she plastered on a smile for her niece.

Remembering that she needed to help keep their fractured family together. There were things that the child did not need to know. Natalia didn't need to know that her Uncle Alexei was going to find out what the very definition of trouble was the next time she saw him. Neva bit her tongue.

Written on Natalia's hot pink cast were the words 'Daddy's Little Princess' surrounded with hearts.

Now Neva had expected her brother to use his niece to attract the opposite sex. All the phone numbers with names written all over the cast was another story entirely. In sharpie marker too.

"No sweetie. Uncle Alexei is not in trouble. I just wanted to remind him that he needed to pick up his dry cleaning in the morning."

With a ding the elevator doors opened.

Doubtful, Natalia's face scrunched up. She followed her aunt out of the elevator somewhat puzzled and wasn't paying attention, so she ran into the back of Neva when Neva came to a sudden stop.

Natalia caught the sight of her aunt grabbing what looked like an envelope taped to their door. Yet her aunt gave her a smile and said nothing. Natalia was exhausted. Her uncles had taken her to the mall, the zoo, the aquarium and fed her enough food she felt like she would burst.

"What's that Aunty?"

"Nothing sweetie," she smiled, right before she checked to make sure that her door was still soundly locked. After which she unlocked all the locks and peeked inside to check her two discreetly placed intruder alarms. Both were still intact. Neva shut the door.

Natalia looked at her puzzled and tired. It was nearly the AM and she was ready for bed.

Neva held up a finger, "One second sweetie…Aunty needs to make a phone call."

Itching a spot on the back of her hand where her cast was beginning to rub, Natalia said nothing. She paced around the hallway until eventually a little later the elevator dinged and a man she didn't recognize hopped out.

Voight had been somewhat surprised to get a call from Neva. Yet when he heard what she had whispered loudly over the phone, he left the hospital and headed to the address he knew from memory, with the instructions she gave him on how to get in the building.

Natalia watched the man speak tersely with her aunt then slide into their apartment.

"Who's that," she asked.

Neva gave her niece a pained smile, "A friend of mine sweetie. He's checking to make sure we don't have a gas leak." She didn't miss her nieces bewildered expression but was glad the child was exhausted. Come morning she would have a better explanation. At that moment in time she just wanted to be sure that no one had been in her apartment while she was away. The envelope taped to her door had been like all the others. Nothing had been written on it like the others. It had given her a chill, just like every other one previously taped to her door.

Natalia began to sniff the air.

Neva nearly covered her face in frustration. The child simply needed to be a child after all the bumps she had faced in her short life. "Just to be safe. We got a letter from the building."

Shrugging, Natalia found herself leaning against her aunts winter coat and long gown until eventually the man with intense features came back. He gave Natalia a well-practiced comforting smile. "No leak. Your apartment is safe."

Neva breathed a sigh of relief.

Natalia shrugged and walked on in, missing the handoff of the envelope. She missed her aunts nervous expression and Voight's quiet words. "Coast is clear. Go put her to bed. I'll be in the kitchen. Do you have any gloves?"

"A box of hospital gloves are on the island in the kitchen."

XIXIXIXIXIXIX

Voight tugged on a pair of gloves from the box he'd found and sliced the envelope open with a knife sharp enough to easily butcher a cow from a nearby knife block.

Once he slid the piece of paper out, he put the envelope into a new clean Ziploc bag and sealed it. Deep down he knew there would be no fingerprints or forensic evidence, besides from Neva's prints on the outside from where she'd touched the envelope. But there was always a small bit of hope that maybe the Windy City Ripper would make a mistake.

After the hours he'd spent in the hospital hoping against all hope that the woman would survive, he wondered if that first mistake had already been made.

Slowly he unfolded the white computer paper that had been used in every other letter Neva passed on to him.

It was just like the other notes. Typed on a computer.

Number fourteen is tonight. You'll always be my number thirteen.

Voight's stomach rolled.

Carefully he folded it up and slid it into another new, clean, gallon sized Ziploc bag. Both bags he put in a magazine on the counter, obviously junk mail, for transport purposes.

When Neva reappeared, she was still in her black floor length gown that drug along the floor without the additional heights heels provided.

"Is it true?" She asked, "Is he back? Did he attack someone else?"

"How'd you know," Voight asked. So far they'd been able to keep it under wraps from the Chicago media.

Neva made a face and sat down on a stool at her marble topped kitchen island.

"Of course, your father." Voight sighed. "Yeah, it's true. But somethings different."  
Her eyebrows rose slightly but that was it.

"Not that I want to upset you."

She waved her hand in the air, "Like it could possibly get any worse if it's true."

He leaned on his elbows on the counter. "Look, Neva, there was a reason this victim survived. The attack wasn't nearly as violent. The only reason she is in surgery was the weapon changed." When she frowned he continued on, hoping she would share something she may have held back or maybe even remembered more recently. "A bigger knife was used. While the attack was not as brutal, he did manage to take the victim by surprise at first. She was stabbed in the heart and somehow survived. Doctor Downey and Rhodes were called in due to the severity of it. I'm sure they will be able to explain it better than me. What I gathered from all of that was that your attacker was possibly more injured when you fought him off than we originally thought."

Genuine surprise flickered across her features.

Voight took that as an opening to proceed. "Why change his weapon? Serial offenders don't make changes like that unless they're forced. Either he somehow lost his preferred method of operation, or he had to adapt due to some sort of unforeseen change."

He watched her think about his words.

"Why don't you tell me what happened that night. Go over it all again. You might remember something you didn't when you made your first statement."


	12. Chapter 12

Voight slid a mug of heavily sugared and creamed coffee to Neva in the hopes it would help in some way. He then sipped from his own mug thanks to the Keurig machine on the counter across the kitchen.

Neva had been thoughtful, pensive, even agitated as she thought long and hard about that night so long ago.

Could she have possibly wounded him significantly more than she first thought?

"No…I never touched his arm or hand. Something must have happened between now and then. I went for his face."

"Well just…lets go over it." He encouraged his only surviving witness that was not under heavy sedation. "Start from the beginning. Maybe you'll remember something else that I can use? You were coming home after a dinner with your fiancé…"

She took the warm mug and looked down at the creamy coffee.

Biting her bottom lip she thought back, "Yeah. We came back from dinner. The apartment looked normal. Keith had to unlock the door like he usually did. Nothing was out of the norm. We went inside and went about like normal…" she pondered, remembering. "Keith and I sat down on the couch to watch a movie when a man came into the room in a ski mask. I knew it was the Ripper when I saw him. He had a gun I remember."

Voight was silent.

He had heard it all before but hearing it again brought it to life. He watched Neva as she thought back. Her hands gripped the mug tightly.

"Keith shoved me onto the floor, I remember vividly." She snorted, rolling her eyes. "He took off and I never saw him again. I thought initially that he went for help." With a sigh she shook her head, "After a while I realized that he'd totally abandoned me. Awesome right?"

Voight's lips tightened.

Neither of them mentioned Keith after that. Neva had heard her father had a strong talking to with her former fiancé. Voight had found what was left of Keith two days later and it had not been much. It had taken weeks to positively identify the man. Rumors went around the city. The general consensus was it had been either Ivan, or his eldest son Uri with possible assistance from other brothers.

Shrugging to minimalize the whole horrific memory, Neva stared at the depths inside the mug. "The guy and I fought. He managed to overpower me and before I knew it I was on the floor…he was on my back and I felt him cutting me. He just kept cutting me and hitting me. He never stabbed me. It was weird. He hit me in the back of the head several times with something heavy until I blacked out."

He had the medical report in his paperwork. Along with the pictures to remind him how violent it had been if she didn't want to hash out those details.

He could even speak with then Nurse Goodwin at the ED to confirm. She'd never forgotten that night. Thinking of it, he probably would go speak to her next. "What happened next?"

Neva's nose scrunched up, "Something woke me up. I had no clue at the time what it had been. All I knew was that it hurt worse than anything I'd ever felt and it was that thing he burned into my back. It was the pain that got me out from underneath him. I flipped out. We fought some more and I got out of the apartment as fast as I could."

Which was always the part he wondered about. He always wondered what she either blocked out, didn't want to speak about or hadn't focused on due to her need to escape.

Gesturing he got her attention. "Wait, hold that thought. Think back to that night as if he were one of your patients. If he came into the hospital, what would be your professional opinion?"

Pursing her lips she thought about that question.

"Well…he would have lost his eye, the right one. He would have had severe facial lacerations from my shoe. Possible nerve damage could have resulted. He definitely would have required immediate surgery."

"You're positive."

Neva's eyebrows met, "Trauma is my specialty. His eye alone would have required immediate treatment. A facial reconstructive surgeon may have been required to repair the damage to his jaw. If there was as much damage as I remember and the shock isn't influencing my memory. Even if that is the case, he would have required stitches to close the right side of his face up. Paired with the damage to his eye…" she then shrugged.

With those new tidbits Voight gave it some thought.

Tapping his fingers on the magazine he asked, "If he lost the eye…would that have impaired his depth perception?"

Another shrug came from Neva, "Depends on how badly damaged it was and if he had it taken care of. I always wondered how he got out of our apartment."

Curiosity caused Voight's eyebrows to raise.

Neva finally sniffed her coffee and took a sip. After she had a good solid drink she set the mug on the counter.

"He would have been in excruciating pain. Honestly…I don't think he would have been able to drive. Someone would have had to help him. I mean, my shoe broke off in his face. When I ran out of the apartment he was screaming louder than me."

For a few minutes Voight was quiet.

Dozens of thoughts buzzed through his head until he met her gaze once more, "What if…what if he did drive? What if he drove and was in a car accident? We always assumed he had a method of transportation to move the victims. Do you remember seeing any vehicles that night repeatedly? Did anything stick out about that day? Or seem out of place when you went back to the apartment?"

Arching her back which had become sore, Neva thought back all those years ago.

She sipped her coffee again.

"Honestly…no, it was just like any other day. The only thing I noticed was about the man and I don't know how to say this without sounding like a psychopath…"

"Just say it. You don't have to explain anything to me."

Taking a deep breath she blew it out before admitting, "He wasn't a fighter."

Voight blinked, not expecting that observation.

She began to explain, tapping the rim of her mug with her thumbs. "You know my family. I grew up with brothers and cousins and guys everywhere. The man who attacked me did not know how to fight." Thinking of how to explain what she had observed and thought over time. "When he hit me, it was either with an object, or…well…he didn't hit me with his weight in it. It was almost like no one had taught him how to fight. Or he'd never been in a fight before and I'm not saying when he hit me it didn't hurt. But, I am saying, if it were one of my brothers hitting me, they would have knocked my lights out in a fraction of the time."

"Ok," Voight murmured, "I can work with that…that's specific."

"I can only assume with his twelve previous victims, he must have taken them completely by surprise. He only managed to subdue me because he belted me in the back of the head with a miniature steel Eiffel Tower from the coffee table."

IXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXI

It was well past one am when Neva finally crawled into bed. It was almost two when she finally decided to send Connor a text message.

In the dark the phone cast a dim light.

She typed up something quick and basic, including a recent picture of Natalia's cast.

::Try not to be jealous…but I totally have the numbers of half the single women in Chicago.::

A moment or two later her phone rang with an incoming call.

She answered it immediately.

"Yes?"

Connor's voice came over the phone with no hint of sleep. She hadn't woken him up as she had worried. "Did you call those women to warn them?"

Neva wiggled down into her bed which was her favorite piece of furniture in the apartment. "No. I've been busy. Voight came to visit me."

Quiet followed.

Neva could hear him shifting around, "Did I bother you in the middle of something?"

"No," he quickly answered. "I'm crashing at the hospital till my shift starts in the morning. I'm glad you called. I didn't want to wake you up, but now that I know you're up…what was Voight doing there? You two are getting pretty chummy."

A noise came from Neva.

She began to play with her damp hair. "It's a friggin disaster. Daddy told me about number fourteen. I freaked out when I got home and called Voight to come check the apartment." Mentioning the note would come later when she could tell him face to face. Some things were just best done in person.

Connor shifted in an attempt to get comfortable on the two seater couch. "So that explains why he tore out of here like his ass was on fire. Is everything ok?"

A silence followed as she thought about it. "Who knows. I don't know. Did the woman survive?"

"She made it through surgery. Whether she'll make it through the next few days…we'll see. She lost a lot of blood. She wasn't cut up like you though. Voight was really hung up on that, does it meant anything to you?"

"We discussed it. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. I'm going to need to spend a day at the spa to sort through all this crap."

Seconds turned into minutes that turned into half an hour.

Eventually Connor not so casually mentioned, "You should get a job at the hospital. HR just put out several openings. It'll give you somewhere to go during the day when Natalia is at school."

Neva, continuing to play with her hair, snorted.

"Unless you want to spend that much time with Natalia's chain-smoking quasi grandmother."

"You bring up an excellent point," Neva agreed.


	13. Chapter 13

A couple days passed and Connor found himself outside in the hospital courtyard where benches awaited for lunch, empty handed. He hadn't been waiting for long when Neva dropped down on the bench beside him. A plastic bag full of food in hand.

"Sorry I'm late. The meeting went longer than I thought…I brought you a present."

The plastic bag was held outstretched.

Connor gave her an incredulous look, "You're an hour late."

"Yaki Soba with Kobe beef."

Connor's expression warmed.

He took the bag, placed it onto his lap and reached over to catch her chin in his fingers. Surprising her with a quick fierce kiss that both warmed her to the deepest parts of body, and almost lifted her out of her seat. Neva closed her eyes so she could savor the feel, smell and taste of him.

As intense and demanding as the kiss was, it was equally quick.

When Connor pulled back to open up the bag, he was pleased to see her eyes remained closed for a few moments.

Upon gathering her collective self-back together, Neva licked her lips then blinked. "Who knew beef was the way to your heart?"

A toothy smile was flashed at her in response.

She watched him flip the lid to the Styrofoam container up then dig in. After letting him devour a solid third of the food, she inquired, "I heard number fourteen regained consciousness."

Connor managed to swallow a mouth full of fresh vegetables mixed with noodles before answering.

"Umhmm. She doesn't remember anything though beyond that morning. From the head injury Doctor Abrams isn't surprised. It doesn't look like she'll require any more surgery. If the gossip mill is on top of things…she'll go into protective custody soon."

Pondering that, Neva crossed her legs and adjusted her black pencil skirt along with her knee length coat. Considering the nightmares that she had endured for the better part of a year after her attack, she suspected not remembering may have been best for the woman.

Connor shoveled more food in before glancing over. "You look delicious I might add. How was the job interview?"

She shrugged.

"What'd you interview for? The spot in Radiology?"

Shaking her head, she began to bounce the leg crossed over her knee. "That new life flight program the hospital is building."

He paused, eyebrows raised, "Really? I thought that was a year off or more."

She shrugged again, "Who knows. My company is in touch with this hospital. They seem interested in my time doing medical flights on my resume. But they asked more than a few questions about my family. So we'll see if I get called back for a second interview. If not, there is a clinic that is looking for nurse practitioners. I may tell my company to tell them yes."

Spearing a hunk of beef, Connor looked at it closely, perhaps admiringly. "We should go out tonight to celebrate. I have tickets for a Blackhawks game."

She frowned but shook her head, "It's a school night. I'll never get a sitter on this short notice."

Connor was not impressed with that reason, "I have three tickets. Natalia should be introduced to the world of ice hockey. She's in the top of her class grade wise. She should be rewarded. A little hockey never hurt anyone."

Slowly she gave it some thought and then nodded in hesitant agreement. Her niece was at the top of her class and she'd been thinking about switching schools when the semester was up to a nearby private one that focused on exceptional students.

Pursing her lips she asked, "What time is the game?" Knowing that Natalia normally had her homework done within an hour of leaving school.

"It starts at eight." Remembering the clock, Connor lifted his wrist and sighed. With quick deft fingers he closed the container and slid it into the bag for later. "I need to run. Downey and I are meeting with the ballet lady. You heading back to your place?"

She shook her head.

"No. Voight wants to meet me at a coffeehouse. He has some pictures to show me. Mugshots I guess."

Connor stilled.

He then glanced around the courtyard as if looking for the man in question. He glanced back at Neva, "Will you be ok going alone?"

Her hand reached over to squeeze his knee.

"I'll be fine Connor. The worst of it is over. I'm branded like cattle. I doubt anything more demeaning could happen…besides, I never saw his face. He had a mask on. What Voight thinks I can contribute to the manhunt is beyond me."

Conflicted, Connor was not happy with what she had told him. There were so many things he wanted to say, to correct. But both of them had places they needed to be in the near immediate future. When she leaned over to softly press her lips to his jaw he let her, he then turned his head so he could kiss her to express the sentiment he had yet to verbalize.

Compared to his previous kiss, his parting kiss was a slower more drawn out one. Touching her hair, he tried to convey the extent of how he felt that very moment. When it ended he stood and promised to text her when his shift ended.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Doctor David Downey strolled into one of the hospitals many conference rooms to see Connor intently watching a television mounted to the wall. One of the many news programs focusing on the return of the Windy City Ripper.

While unfortunate, David was not at all surprised that the information had been leaked to the media.

Secrets were not kept like they were in the old days.

In one of his shirts covered with images of tropical paradise, he walked around the large table to take a seat beside Connor. He wasn't at all surprised when Connor inquired, "Think it's the same guy?"

The lady on the news was mentioning the notorious BTK and his period of dormancy before being captured.

Downey dropped down into the chair and sighed in response, "Who knows."

Connor frowned.

David picked up on the younger man's crossed arms and genuine irritation. He smelled great though. Like really good fried noodles, green onions and beef. Downey only knew of one place in the city that could make food that delicious. It was way across town. Way too far for Rhodes to walk on his brief lunch break.

Being an intelligent intuitive man he leaned back in his plush conference chair. "Judging from the amount of lipstick on your face, I am beginning to understand your dedication to avoiding Voight and his people." He then handed Connor a few tissues from a nearby box located next to a pitcher of water and empty glasses.

XXXXXXXXXX

Neva noticed the two plain clothed officers when she walked into the packed Starbucks.

A woman and a guy, both white, early thirties, dark hair and so conspicuous they might as well had signs around their necks with their badge numbers. So she made sure to wave at them both on her way by their table.

When she dropped down across from Voight at his table across the establishment, she made a face, "Really? My niece could have picked them out. At least you bought something to try and blend in."

"I'd expect nothing less from you," was his answer.

It made a smile tug on her lips. But not fully appear. Eager to get the show on the road, she tapped the table with her hands. "Come on. Let me see the pictures. I have things to do."

A few pieces of paper and a pen were slid across the table.

Neva knew what to do, she picked up the pen and flipped over the computer printouts. On each paper were six pictures of white males with various forms of facial injury. The medical professional inside of her quickly began to observe all the scarring and injury, discounting various pictures by wounds.

Car accident.

Stabbing.

Bite wounds.

Something she honestly could not identify marred one guys face.

One by one she shook her head.

Voight's stomach dropped with every page she put face down, unmarked. He spent days and nights digging through accident reports from three years ago. It's taken him and his team what seemed like forever.

Yet when she reached that last page he sensed a change in Neva immediately.

Her eyes narrowed and her head cocked to the side. Those unusual sapphire eyes of her darted across the other pictures. He watched her put big X's through other faces on the paper as she ruled them out, by whatever process she was using.

Then her gaze returned to a picture that Lindsay had added after much debate.

Neva's head bounced back and forth and he heard her tapping her pump on the floor beneath the table.

Finally she shook her head, "I don't know about that one."

"What don't you know," he asked.

She fidgeted in her seat and looked at the picture even closer, if that were possible. "I can't say no…there is something about him...his facial injuries are significantly worse than what I remember though. I never broke his nose but I did remember something. I um, I started having nightmares again."

Saying nothing, his eyes pressed her for details.

"I don't know if it will help or not. But his hands. I remembered his hands were soft…very soft. It surprised me how soft they were and he had a ring on. A big ring. Not like my father's rings…it was like a college class ring. You know, like the big ones that men wear when they want to impress people."

"I know exactly what you mean," Voight assured her with a nod. When Neva gathered herself up to leave, he spoke up. "Have you been watching the news?"

Pausing in her chair she shook her head, "I try to avoid it."

"Well," he sighed deeply, "I think you should know that there were several fires in Little Moscow. Four businesses belonging to Anton Petrov were intentionally burnt to the ground. Fortunately no one was hurt. There are however concerns about the situation getting considerably more out of hand."

For just a moment Neva was quiet, fully realizing the implications of what had happened and mostly likely who had set it. The suspect list in her head was short and included mostly people with her surname.

After all, her former fiancé had been Anton's son.

"I didn't do it," was her response.

Voight's gaze narrowed.

"What are you telling me for? You of all people should know that my father is not an equal opportunity employer. Even if I had not severed most my ties to my old life…I wouldn't be included in the decision making process to do that. Ok? So look elsewhere, I have to go."


	14. Chapter 14

Will Halstead was not only surprised to see Neva as he headed towards the lounge where his locker awaited him after a long shift, but startled to see a little blonde girl on her hip in a man's hockey jersey over her jeans and turtleneck. On her small hand that was not in a hot pink cast was a large blue foam finger. Not only did the girl look more than old enough to walk around on her own two feet, but Neva looked exceptionally irritated about having to wait mere feet away from the lounge. Like a guilty teenager that had just shoplifted and was possibly caught. Still, she managed to squeeze out a smile when he approached. "Hey Stud. You enjoy that gift basket yet?"

Will's surprise by the first part of her greeting melted away when she mentioned one of the two auctions he'd won.

Coming to a stop a few inches away, where he was out of the way, Will glanced around to be sure. "When I get home. One of the steaks has been marinating in my fridge all day long. I'm going to grill it and watch the game…are you girls looking forward to the Blackhawks?"

Natalia perked up at a plural mention. She glanced over her shoulder and nodded enthusiastically, "Auntie Neva said this would be life changing. I get to wear a helmet with a faceguard."

Both of Will's eyebrows rose in a question.

Adjusting her niece, Neva gave Will a reassuring smile. "After this week…it'd be my luck she get nailed in the face with a wild puck."

"That'll come in handy if there are any fights too," Will chimed in.

A look of concern briefly passed over Natalia's face. As if questioning the safety of the place that she was being taken. A question was on the tip of her tongue when she noticed the lounge door open and Connor emerge in jeans with a baseball hat on. Pointing her foam finger his way she asked, "Will there be any fights?"

"Hopefully," Connor answered. His gaze then went over to Will, a tablet was handed over to his coworker. "Those lab results are in. April asked me to give this to you before I left."

A look of hope crossed over Will's features at the mention of lab work.

An exchange was made. Connor handed over the tablet then reached out for Natalia, who sprung into his arms like a cat onto a forbidden countertop. Neva didn't complain. She'd been carrying her niece around since she'd slipped and fallen on what the weatherman referred to as 'wintery mix' three separate times since leaving their apartment. Connor then handed over his backpack to Neva who slung it over her shoulder to balance out the ache on her other side.

Will's hope vanished so blatantly Connor had to ask, "Nothing show up?"

Neva cocked an eyebrow.

"My patient has a mystery illness. Weakness, pain, vomiting, headache, nausea…nothing has seemed to work and she's just getting worse. All the bloodwork is normal." Blowing out a frustrated breath, Will glanced up. He did not miss the look that passed between Connor and Neva. Looking between the two Will had to know, "What? What is it? What's that look."

Another look that spoke volumes went between the two.

Adjusting the child comfortably on his side so she could swing her winter boots more comfortably, Connor asked, "Did you screen for poisons?"

Will nodded, "Yeah…nothing came up. Either it's not poison or I'll have to have her tested for a specific poison. I just have to narrow it down further."

"Have you checked your patient's nails?"

Silence followed.

Will blinked in surprise at the question while Neva checked her phone for a new text.

"Why would I check her fingernails? Is that something you learned in Saudi Arabia?"

Connor's grip around Natalia's waist grew a little tighter as she began to bounce a little more from boredom. "No," he smiled at Will's disbelief from his suggestion. For some reason he found it amusing. "I actually learned it from Choi. If it's a heavy metal poisoning there will be rings on the nails."

Reading a text Neva nodded in total agreement at their conversation, "They're called Mees Lines. White lines that go from one side of the nail to the other."

"And how'd you know that," Will asked.

Not glancing up Neva shrugged, "ID Channel. Some woman in Georgia killed off her kids by poisoning them. A doctor figured it out when he saw the daughter's nails. There's a Wikipedia page." Once she deleted the text she glanced up to see Will's face. "What? I think it was on Snapped."

Tablet in hand, Will gave Connor's shoulder a brotherly tap with his fist. "Thanks man…have fun at the game."

Connor wasn't at all surprised to see Will avoid the lounge and head for the hallway that would lead him towards the ICU, which was where his patient was admitted a few hours ago. He then glanced over to Neva. "Snapped? Really?"

"Be sure you make that surprised face if I ever get my own episode and they ask you to appear on it," she countered back.

XXIIXXIIXXIIXXIIXXIIXX

"So will they clean all the blood off the ice? And how will both teams fit in the penalty box? Do you think that guys ok? I can't believe that other guy hit him in the face with his stick." Natalia asked, absolutely wowed by the sight of a bloody ice rink after a brawl. It was the start of intermission and she had questions, many questions.

Connor was pleased that a new hockey fan had been made.

Neva couldn't believe her brother's hockey helmet had come in handy, twice.

"It's hockey," Connor explained. "Getting hit with a stick is a strong possibility. It's why they have a team doctor." Natalia sat between the two of them and so far he had two game pucks in his jacket.

"Oh," she mused, "Like why Grandpa has doctors that work for him."

"Exactly," he agreed before Neva could chime in. When she did it was about food, "I'm going to run up to the snack stand before everyone else does. You want anything?"

Natalia shook her head.

On their way in they'd spent a small fortune on rink side dinner. After all that salty goodness, Connor dug into his pants to procure a few bills. "A bottle of water would be great. If they have any of those nuts too."

Snatching the money from him, Neva blew him a kiss then hiked it up the steps since they had aisle seats. Having spent all of her money on dinner, she was fresh out of cash and in no mood to track down a ATM.

"Johnny is going to be so jealous. His family has luxury box season tickets. They must be really crappy cause he's never been hit with a puck and he's never seen anyone's teeth fly out." Natalia shared almost gleefully. When she glanced up at Connor, a large crack from where puck number two had hit her right on the faceguard was visible. He found himself genuinely impressed.

"You should take that helmet to class too," he suggested. Tapping the front right side he added, "There's a dent here from where the first puck hit you."

"That little snot won't say jack to me for like a week now. This is awesome." Seeing Connor's expression Natalia elaborated, "His parents are still alive. He never gets tired of reminding me. If only I had diplomatic immunity…"

Finding an old feeling he'd buried deep along with his late mother, Connor patted the top of her helmet. "Oh what we'd all do with some diplomatic immunity. You know, my mom died when I was your age."

Natalia's head popped up.

Her blue eyes locked on his, "Really?"

Connor nodded.

"It sucks," she shared.

"It does," Connor agreed.

Movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye. A few seconds away from asking if Neva needed more money. Connor was surprised to see it wasn't Neva who had come to a stop right by the empty seat next to Natalia. It was his father, Cornelius Rhodes.

Imposing as ever in one of his heavy dark coats, Cornelius remained standing. A smile that didn't quite reach his eyes on his face. "So this is the lucky girl to catch two pucks?"

Natalia frowned, "I'm not lucky. I caught them with my face."

It was then when Cornelius saw the shattered face guard and could not fully hide his surprise, "So I see. Wow, you are a lucky girl. Good thing you had a helmet on." Reaching out with a gloved hand he introduced himself. "I'm Cornelius. I'm Connor's father. And who would you be?"

As if asking for confirmation, Natalia glanced around at Connor after shaking his hand but before giving out any personal information. "I'm not allowed to give out personal information without speaking to an attorney."


	15. Chapter 15

Natalia watched as Connor's mood took a steep decline. From happy and relaxed, to guarded and irritable. Very much like her aunt whenever she found one of those envelopes taped to the door, or she ran out of her favorite matte red lipstick. Even from beneath her uncle's smelly helmet Natalia could pick up on the tension between the two men.

"Have you been watching the news," the man who referred to himself as Connors father asked.

Natalia glanced over at Connor who looked angry enough to eat glass.

"Nope," he shook his head, slouching down into his seat and resting his hands on his chest. "Spent all day at work."

Natalia's head then turned back to look at Cornelius.

The man slid his hands into the pockets of his coat and looked elsewhere. Natalia instantly found his behavior suspicious. Like their neighbor who claimed to only eat dirt, sacred dirt, but still just dirt. Or the girl who sat three desks in front of her in class that collected pictures of people's feet on her phone.

"Well…" Cornelius drawled, "…there have been quite a few fires down in Little Moscow today."

At mention of that area of the city, home to many people of Russian and Eastern European descent, Natalia perked up. She glanced over at Connor to see his jaw had set firmly.

When it became clear he had no answer she looked back to Cornelius who continued to act casually. "The fire crews have managed to get the flames put out. I thought you might want to keep abreast of the situation, considering who you've been spending time with these days."

Natalia's head whipped back, her helmet clattering against her head, eager to see what he would say.

Connor was silent, although even more annoyed, if it were possible.

When he finally spoke it was with a tone she'd never heard from him. "Is that it?"

She then looked back to Cornelius. Curious to see if that was indeed it. As it turned out, it was not it.

"I'm just looking out for you son. I'd hate to see all your hard work go up in flames because of certain people."

He didn't at all sound genuinely concerned and when she looked back to Connor, he looked pissed. She'd seen that look before having nine uncles who were related, plus the plethora of male relatives and family friends, well-wishers and associates. Natalia knew it was time to act. Before Connor could say whatever was on the tip of his tongue and based on his expression it would be scathing, Natalia announced, "I have to go to the bathroom. Just number one."

Connor's expression changed to one of horror.

Natalia glanced over at Cornelius who suddenly seemed to be eager to get away.

When she glanced back at Connor, she saw desperate thoughts flood his expression as he began to work out the logistics of her statement. Natalia winked at him. It took a moment for Connor to catch on. So winked again, longer that time, her back to Cornelius.

"Someone has to help me. My mobility is limited with this plaster monstrosity on my arm," she added for realism.

As expected Cornelius made an excuse about people waiting for him. Connor got up, a little bit relieved. Natalia managed to wiggle out of her seat and when she stood, she looked up to Cornelius who had yet to move from his spot blocking the aisle. "Do I have to wear my helmet?"

"Yes," Connor told her almost instantly.

At first he found it a bit ridiculous. He thought Neva was just overreacting from everything that had been going on. Up until two pucks flew over the safety glass hitting the child. Maybe Neva was on to something about her luck? He even grabbed the bulky back of Natalia's jersey to be on the safe side. Getting several layers of clothing beneath to get a good grip on the child. Unsure if Neva would forgive him should he lose her niece in the hockey stadium.

Only when the two of them were sure that Cornelius was well on his way to the luxury boxes, Connor grabbed Natalia beneath her arms and swiftly lifted her up over his head to set her down on his shoulders. A thrilled shriek came from Natalia. From up on his shoulders she got a great view of the Blackhawks hockey arena and Connor didn't have to worry about her getting lost.

"Are you comfortable up there? Have a good grip?"

Balanced almost perfectly, Natalia rested her good arm on the top of his head. She nodded, "Uh-huh."

"Let's go find your aunt before he comes back." Connor sighed. After which he began to hike the steps up to the exit out to the bathrooms and concession stands. "Good job scaring him off by the way. You earned yourself a hat."

From up on her perch, Natalia beamed. "That was weird. But not the weirdest. Our neighbor eats dirt."

"Well that's special," Connor remarked while making a mental note to ask about said neighbor.

He hiked up the steps and headed out into the concrete hall towards the numerous food and merchandise vendors. From up on his shoulders, Natalia picked out her aunt pretty quickly. Tapping his hat she pointed out the way. "Over there. By the people without shirts on and painted bodies."

Following her directions, Connor easily spotted the hockey fans with painted torsos and Neva a few feet away. Waters bottles in one hand and salted brown sugar covered baked nuts in a paper container in the other. She stood paying a pretzel vendor for a large salty doughy treat with cheese sauce. Tugging on Natalia's ankles he addressed her, "Hang on tight. We're going in."

Her ankles dug into his chest.

Expertly he maneuvered the crowd and made his way over to pretzel stand. Covertly he approached and bumped Neva from behind with his hips.

"I think you've successfully picked the saltiest pretzel in that rotating display," he observed.

She bumped him back and when she turned, made a face at the location of Natalia. "At least she has a helmet on…and yes I did. You don't have to have any of my salty goodness."

"I didn't say that," he remarked, stuffing the two water bottles in his jacket pockets then gave her another bump from behind with his hips.

"Oh! Get two things of cheesy sauce," Natalia chimed in. Resulting in Neva nodding to the vender before handing over the requested amount of cash for the extra food items. She handed over the nuts to Connor and grabbed a handful of napkins before turning, ready to return to their seats. Playfully she snapped her teeth at him, "If you're lucky I'll share all this bounty with you."

Right off his tongue rolled a remark. All while he watched her head away from the food stand. "Yeah…but I something to eat before we go home to prepare for all your bounty."

From up above Natalia frowned, clinging tight as they headed into the crowd of hockey fans. "I'm not waiting to eat all this at home. The cheese will get weird."

Connor was glad for young innocent minds in that moment. Although nearby college aged males were giving him approving looks. He'd been a bit distracted by making sure the young males weren't shooting disrespectful looks Neva's way he nearly ran into Neva, not aware she stopped dead in her tracks. Her gaze off into the crowd somewhere he couldn't seem to find.

"What? What's up? Is Voight here too?"

"No," she said too quickly, shaking her head a bit too vehemently. "No its nothing…I thought I saw someone. Let's go. Let's get back to the seats before the cheese gets cold."

Connor didn't believe her for a second and took a good long look at the mass of people grabbing refreshments and sports items before the game started up again.


	16. Chapter 16

Connor couldn't get comfortable.

He couldn't get to sleep.

Nothing was working.

Normally he had no issue falling asleep in strange places or uncomfortable positions. The fact that Neva had one of those gel memory foam bamboo mattresses should have been on his shortlist of great strange places he'd slept. Yet, he found himself adjusting the pillow yet again and staring up at the dark ceiling.

From the beside him in the dark came Neva's voice, "Do you need to go home and sleep in your own bed?"

"No," he said a bit quicker than he meant.

A sigh came from her side of the bed, "Do you have indigestion?"

Connor thought about it a second. Maybe that was his problem? Surprisingly he didn't have indigestion, "No."

Noises of movement filled the room until a lamp switched on a few moments later. It made Connor wince at the sudden light. Seeing her in the dimly lit room he knew exactly what his problem was, yet asking seemed to cause him pause. Did he want to go there? Connor wanted to stay as far from the friend-zone as humanly possible. Not asking about the scars had worked fine. She seemed almost grateful he didn't ask all those burning questions.

Yet, yet something just didn't sit right.

It was her face earlier. Her demeanor during the rest of the hockey game. She seemed downright jumpy. Last time he'd seen her that jumpy was when she'd been on a break from time in various warzones. She'd always been a little jumpy for the first few days at loud noises, tailgaters and trash on roadsides or outdoors in public areas.

She was driving him nuts without doing anything to him.

"What's going on? You've been acting odd since intermission." Hesitating only briefly before he gestured at her back hidden beneath a t-shirt. "Is it about that there."

Able to see her better in the light propped up on her elbows. Connor could make out her tousled hair around her shoulders, the logo of Harley Davidson Kuwait on the back of her well-worn shirt as she stared down at the pillow. Quietly she asked after a few minutes, "Do you promise not to freak?"

After those words he made himself comfortable. Placing linking his fingers together and placing them behind his head he prepared himself. "That bad huh?"

Jerking her head to gesture over her shoulder at her back.

She then met his gaze, "He sends me things. Calls me his Lucky Number Thirteen."

Neva watched his expression which was surprised, yet he didn't leave skid marks on his way out of the bedroom. A little bit of hope remained that she wouldn't frighten him off.

When he finally spoke she let go of a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"That's why Voight's been hanging around."

She nodded in confirmation.

Then it struck him, "You saw him at the game? Didn't you?"

Neva hesitated then looked back at her pillows. "I don't think so…I saw a guy with an eyepatch on…but it's a hockey game. People wear odd things to sporting events. Right?" With a sigh Neva looked back over to him, "I don't know. It's been on my mind. I was probably just seeing things that weren't there."

Connor sensed that he needed to say or do something. Yet he wasn't sure what that exact thing was and for a moment he worried an important opportunity would pass.

Reaching over with a barefoot, he hooked his heel around her ankle. A fuzzy sock tickling his foot. When she moved over closer to his side he knew he did the right thing. Loosening one arm he slid it around her to tug her closer against him, until she curled up against him with her hands folded to her chest and her legs wrapped around his.

"Did it look like the guy?" It seemed as good of a question as any other he could think up.

"I don't know," she confessed, "He was too far away."

Kissing the top of her head he thought about what to say next. Never having found himself in that particular situation before, out of all the many situations he found himself over the years. Still he knew he had to say something. Placing his chin on the top of her head, he asked, "When was the last time he sent something?"

"A few days ago…he taped a note to the front door."

Something inside of him kicked. Connor could have sworn he felt something snap or break. Almost instantaneously he sat up, causing her to fall off him. The abrupt movement caught Neva by surprise. Blinking she looked up at him unsure what to expect by his reaction.

Connor pointed in the general direction of the apartments front door, "Are you kidding me? He knows where you live? He was actually here!"

"Well not in here…" Neva clarified, pushing a wall of hair from her face that had slid down at the sudden change of position. "…out in the hallway."

"How long has this been going on?"

She thought about it for a moment which further infuriated Connor. His eyes grew wider, "What did the note say?"

Neva hesitated, knowing he would not be pleased with her answer. "I don't know. I don't read them. I haven't read any of them. I give them to Voight who has them tested for any evidence."

His gaze narrowed dangerously, "So he's stalking you?"

At mention of the S-Word she cringed. It was something she made considerable effort to not give thought. More than a few things were on the tip of his tongue. Connor simply could not believe it. He could feel his anger becoming a tangible thing and was about to voice his outrage at the situation. Up until he looked back at her and saw no hint of anger or outrage. Instead Connor saw guilt, possibly even humiliation. It hit him just as deeply as the anger.

What was about to come out of his mouth would do more harm than good.

Reaching out he placed a hand on the blanket and rubbed her calf gently.

"Neva…the worst part is over. You survived. You got away. Not many people can say that after encountering someone that dangerous. That takes real strength. And you know what, between you and me and…Voight, we'll get through this…" Making sure that he made eye contact to drive home his words. Realizing then that a protection order was simply out of the question. Connor dove over to a nightstand on his side of the bed.

Neva immediately began to panic, "Where are you going?" She was not at all comforted when he grabbed his phone. "Connor?" She could hear the raise in her voice. Slightly surprising her as to just how upset she was compared to where on a scale she thought she was at.

Connor wiggled back over to her and wrapped an arm around her, while flipping through his phone with quick swipes of his thumb. His gaze was set. He was a man on a mission.

"I'm getting tiny cameras to put out in the hall and inside by your door. Maybe we'll get a look at him. Then I'll know for sure if he's getting in here too."

Sure it didn't exactly fill her with warm contented peaceful feelings, not being the only person with the weight of it bearing down on her anymore did register. A burden she hadn't even realized was there sitting on her shoulders seemed to have vanished. Silently she curled back up against Connor and watched him cruise Amazon adding a significant amount of small cameras to his electronic shopping cart.

XXXLess-Than-Two-Shipping-Days-LaterXXX

"What the hell are you two doing?" Natalia asked upon stepping into the open front door of her apartment. Two steps over the threshold and she got a good look at Connor standing on a small step ladder. Standing behind him on the floor was Aunt Neva. If Natalia wasn't positive, she'd say that her favorite aunt was more interested in his posterior than the smoke detector he was screwing into the ceiling. "We have eight of those things in here already."

Both Neva and Connor glanced down at the puzzled child.

"One more never hurt anyone," Neva told her, then crossed her arms, "Go call Olya to let her know you made it down here. You remember what happened last time you forgot to call."

Connor glanced at Neva as Natalia stomped off down the hallway muttering to herself.

"What happened last time?"

Neva didn't even try to hide her appreciative glance at his loose jeans. Jeans that fit just snug enough around his waist to hold them up and frame his bottom. Cocking her head to one side, she sighed appreciatively. "Olya wouldn't let her use the elevator alone for six months. It was a tragedy. I didn't think I'd ever hear the end of it."

A smirk tugged at his lips.

Then his attention went back to the seemingly functional smoke detector with a small camera inside, complete with motion activating sensor.

"Is she allowed to say hell? My nanny at that age would have washed my mouth out while shouting at me in Portuguese."

Neva nodded but he could tell her attention was mostly on his jeans. Not that he minded. The compassionate part of him was glad her attentions were elsewhere. A deeper more primal part of him was pleased, but for a far more different reason. "Well, you would think I'd have a rule about profanity. But I killed a flying bug yesterday with my shoe and apparently used the f-word twenty-seven times. She counted. And that was just the f-bomb. It seems I taught her and the neighbor three new expressions. So that's a battle I'm conceding right now. I'm going to need some colorful language if I'm going to get through this week…I'll teach her Calculus to balance it out."

A soft laugh escaped from him.

As Connor looked back up and began to screw in the last screw to secure the plastic base, he inquired, "You can't be that nervous about your interview with Dr. Charles."

Neva made a face when he brought up her upcoming interview. With a wave of her hand she dismissed that entirely, "Oh hell to the no. At the end of the week I have a wedding to attend. One of my cousins finally managed to trap some poor unsuspecting soul. Natalia and I are going to go watch the ritual sacrifice go down in the church…David's coming too, mostly for the food and vodka. You can come if you want."

Connor glanced down at her with a bewildered expression. "It's a little late for that…how many people did you RSVP for?"

"Guess."

Frowning at her response, "I don't know, how many people did you RSVP for?"

"That's what I wrote in, guess. I'm Ivan's daughter. I don't need to explain myself to those relatives. They need to kiss my ass if they want to stay in my father's good graces."

Shaking off a laugh Connor finished up attaching the hidden camera, "So what's a mob wedding like?"

Neva thought about it.

Pursing her lips she bounced her head back and forth, "Religious ceremony with the blessing of the bishop. Lots of food. Lots of booze. Some celebratory gunfire. You know…the usual wedding activity."


	17. Chapter 17

"So it was arsenic," Will informed Connor as he dropped into a chair near his coworker.

Connor glanced up from the pile of paperwork he'd been filling out.

Will put a tablet on the workstation and looked back to Connor. "Her boyfriend was doing it. Putting it in her food. My brother just showed up. Apparently the boyfriend had three other girlfriends who died mysteriously according to my patient."

Connor grimaced then shook his head.

"I can't believe I'd never heard of Mees Lines."

Looking back down to the mountain he had to fill out he replied, "It's an older thing. Some crusty old Navy Doctor told Choi about it. It's a way they used to look for heavy metal poisoning back in the day before lab testing. Did you know arsenic used to be called inheritance powder back then?"

Will shook his head, "That's messed up. Choi tell you that?"

"A Medical Examiner told me when I was in Mexico City.," Connor answered just as Maggie popped into view from on the other side of the nurses station. "Car accident Doctor Rhodes. Female adolescent with possible broken leg. Three minutes out."

The patient was a teenager named Skyler and she would leave a lifelong impression on Connor.

XXXMeanwhileInTheHospitalXXX

Doctor Daniel Charles greeted Neva with a firm handshake, kind words of introduction and a gesture at one of the chairs in front of his desk. Adjusting his tie, he himself sat down in his chair ready to do an interview for a possible new hire. At his hands were paperwork from the hospital, forms she had filled out and a resume. Charles did many interviews for possible new hires. However the administration had some questions about the resume and after looking through it, Charles had to agree.

"I want to thank you for coming in to speak with me. Did you have any difficulty finding your way through the hospital?"

Sitting down, Neva shook her head and crossed her legs, smoothing her hands over her inky pencil skirt. "Not at all. It's a beautiful hospital. Much bigger than where I previously worked. I love that you have walls."

For a moment Charles was quiet.

He blinked in surprise at her serious face until a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Considering the runaround he'd received for the past two days from her work agency, her statement opened a door that he had made a plan to approach. A pleased look crossed his features. "Yes we do. There have been considerable renovations made and as you can see, we continue to grow. So tell me, I've looked over your resume and am curious about the work you've done in the past. Your agency sent over a resume."

Knowing exactly what her employer had sent over, Neva was not at all shocked.

Charles held up papers that were significantly redacted.

She nodded at the sight of them. They were as she suspected.

"From what I can see you've worked for West and Associates for seven years?"

Neva nodded in agreement.

"You're fluent in Arabic, Pashto, Mandarin and Russian? Conversational in Spanish?"

Neva nodded again.

"You've worked in the field of emergency trauma for the past seven years?"

Another nod of confirmation came in response.

"And that is it…the rest has been redacted," Charles stated, adding, "Although from the languages spoken I can only assume what parts of the world you were working in."

"They like to keep me busy," she told him.

Placing the papers down Charles clasped his fingers. Thoughtfully he worded his question carefully, "Obviously you cannot give specifics about your work. Your employer passed on phone numbers for the State Department. That was new." A small laugh came from the fatherly man before he asked, "I was hoping that perhaps you could tell me about your work? What you are able to speak about, of course."

With this being her third interview, Neva was a bit surprised to be asked those questions so late. She assumed it was a good sign though. Maybe she'd get the job?

"I completely understand. What do you want to know?"

Pleased he gestured at her to go on, "Why don't we start with the specifics of your job description?"

Shifting in her seat, she gave some thought on how to break down her work from the past seven years. When she was satisfied she spoke up. "Well, depending on what was needed my role can be divided into two separate jobs. My time in a country was anywhere from less than a month to three months depending on the country's stability. Sometimes I would be sent to a hospital with my fellow medically trained coworkers to work in their emergency rooms. This was usually in a teaching capacity as well, to help the staff run a functional trauma center. Other times I would go to places with a group of employees from my agency as the sole medical contractor. My job would be to be their medical provider in the event that they were injured in their work."

Interested, he cocked his head to the side. Not surprised by what she told him. But more details would be needed. A call to the state department would be made once Charles had more information.

"What sort of medical care did you provide most frequently?"

Neva's eyebrows rose, "Well, it varied. Gunshot wounds, head injuries, TB was prevalent as were contagious diseases, shrapnel and explosive type wounds from explosive devices. Blunt force trauma was common. It just depended on where I was to what capacity I was working, the specific year too. Some years I worked in more hospital settings. Other years I worked more frequently as an embedded contactor."

An idea came to Charles, "Do you have a passport I could look at?"

Understanding she nodded, a bit amused by his idea. "I have two passports. I have a personal one I can bring over today. I suspect you'll want my official passport and that is kept by my employer. You'll have to contact them about seeing it. Did they send over all my certifications and diplomas? They assured me that they would send my credentials down."

Charles patted a significantly thick folder with the documents in question.

XXXThatNightXXX

Neva slammed the door to her Jeep hard enough it shook the entire vehicle.

She'd spent nearly three hours in gridlock traffic and wanted nothing more than to go take a hot bath, drink some hot tea and settle in with a travel memoir she'd been reading about China.

Olya had called her when the traffic finally let up to tell her that Natalia was in bed, so she'd keep her the night and send her off to school in the morning.

Neva was undecided on if she wanted to go wake her niece up to bring her home.

It was just one floor of distance.

Plus it was nearly eleven at night.

According to Olya the child was sound asleep. A picture had been texted over as proof. It had been a while since Neva had a night to herself too. She'd begun to think about the possibilities as she shoved her hands into her coat and trudged across the well illuminated parking lot for her building.

By chance she noticed a familiar vehicle.

Not only did it belong to Connor, but he was inside of it.

Sensing that something was really off, wrong even, she walked over to it, salt and gravel crunching beneath her patent leather pumps which had surpassed wildly uncomfortable by that point.

Upon approaching the passenger side of the vehicle she tapped on the window.

Connor jumped in the driver's seat.

Her heart sank even further. Something was most definitely wrong.

Neva tried the door to find it unlocked. Quickly she climbed in and noticed that inside was nearly as chilly as outside in the cold Chicago night. How long had he been sitting there?

"Hey…are you ok? What's going on?"

When Connor looked over at her it was clear he'd been upset. His eyes were red. He'd been crying. The man looked completely shattered.

"She's dead," he told her, almost looking through her.

Instantly Neva felt her heart drop, a sickening feeling filled her and she felt lightheaded. Who on earth was he talking about?

"She died right in front of me. She took my hand, she gasped and then she died. She died right there on the table. She bled out right in front of me. I watched her die."

And then it became clear to Neva. Reaching over she took his hand, whispering, "Ok," to herself first, fully understanding. She then squeezed his hand knowing she couldn't say or do anything to fix it. Nodding she lifted up his hand and pressed his knuckles against her lips. He stared at her seeing the gesture but he was clearly too upset for it to sink in. Seeing his pain hit her in a deep place. "Ok…let's go inside. You need to get out of the cold."


	18. Chapter 18

"Go sit down. I'll make you some coffee." Neva instructed, keeping to herself a concern about how long Connor had been outside in his car. Worry about him mingled with concern for his core body temperature. Neither were voiced out loud. She didn't even make him take off his shoes.

Still in his heavy winter coat too, Neva nudged Connor into her apartment to her couch.

Reaching over she turned on a lamp while she kicked off her pumps. A throw from over the back of her couch was pulled down to cover his legs. Stopping short of rubbing his legs vigorously to be sure he wasn't as cold as she feared. In the dim light she got a look at him. Connor was more alert than he had been in his vehicle. A little bit of relief began to seep in.

Those red eyes of his locked onto hers in what could only be described as grief. A feeling she was very familiar with, and in response, she dropped down on the couch beside him. Taking his cool hand in hers she gripped it tightly.

From experience alone she knew that there was nothing she could say to make it better, or fix what had happened.

What she could do was be there for him.

For a while the two sat on the couch.

By then Connor was out of tears. His head pounded and his eyes burnt. It felt worse than his worst hangover. A part of him felt shattered. Absolutely destroyed as he continued to question himself and his decisions over his shift.

Then there was Skyler's expression which was seared into his memory.

"How old was she," Neva inquired.

Connor's voice was hoarse, "She was a teenager."

She nodded and sat in silence with him. Over a space of time she could feel him warming up beside her. It wasn't long before ten minutes, twenty minutes and then thirty minutes passed.

Neva then reached down and squeezed his knee. Quietly she stood and walked over into the open air kitchen. A light on the stove was turned on that dimly lit the kitchen and the living room. It allowed Connor to see her turn on a Keurig, get a couple mugs from the cupboard and then dig around her fridge. He didn't realize until that point that he hadn't eaten since breakfast. He was starving. Then he felt guilty about being hungry when Skyler would never again eat anything.

The logical part of his brain told him he was being ridiculous. He couldn't save everyone. For every one patient he lost, he saved dozens of others. His brain shouted at him not to get emotional over this when there was nothing that he could have done.

Leaning forward he rested his forehead in his hands, placed his elbows on his knees and closed his eyes.

It was impossible to silence his thoughts. So much so that he didn't realize Neva was beside him, until she nudged him with her knee. When he glanced up she held a hand outstretched. In her hand was a glass of water. In her other hand were a couple of pills. Wordlessly he took the glass and the pills. Neva rubbed his shoulder before going back into the kitchen.

"Nothing stronger," he taunted, knowing that somewhere in the apartment Neva had a 'goody box' that would be suitable for any medical emergency.

From within the kitchen in the depths of the open fridge came her voice.

"You don't need anything stronger." When she stood up a few seconds later after he downed the Tylenol she narrowed her eyes at him, a glass container of leftovers in hand. "I suppose I could give you a few Ambien to take the edge off."

"That's ok," was his response.

It wasn't too long before appetizing smells made his mutinous stomach growl out in protest. Still he didn't get up. Feeling too guilty to go get something to eat. He thought a shower might help, but then the guilt rose back up.

Suddenly it was too much.

Connor stood up, "You know what…I think I'm going to go home."

She frowned at him, "You need to eat something." Her words she realized were in vain. He was already off the couch and in motion. A string of profanities in Russian left her lips as she hurried from the kitchen. "Connor? Connor!"

By the time she caught up with him, he'd made it to the entranceway and was midway through unlocking her front door.

"Connor you don't need to be alone right now."

One of the locks stuck and she sighed a bit too loudly.

Paired on top of everything, Connor sounded a bit harsher then he wanted when he spoke. But couldn't bring himself to say or do anything in his defense. He just had to get away. He needed to be alone. "I'll be fine."

Neva's frown deepened, "Connor."

With a jerk he got the door open. His eyes looked everywhere but at her, "I'll call you."

Her frown deepened considerably. Especially when Connor bumped into someone in the hallway in an effort to get away quickly. Her frown became a scowl when she saw who that person was that Connor bumped into, right around the time Connor slipped into the elevator just before the doors closed.

"What do you want Uri?"

Neva's eldest brother glanced back at the closing doors, "Was that the doctor?"

"Don't worry about him. What do you want? Did you run out of things to set on fire?"

Well over six feet tall, dressed in oil stained jeans and a heavy leather jacket, Uri was covered with tattoos yet his bright blue eyes and charming smile made him appear more like the motorcycle riding boy next door than a felon. "Har-har," he snapped. Shoving his tattooed hands into his pockets he glanced around. "That was cousin Anton. You know I'm not a firebug. Besides…I'm not here about that. I need you to come with me and bring your tackle box of wonders. Luca got shot and our doctor is out of town. A few of the guys could stand for some first aid too."

Neva's eyes narrowed to slits.

"Leave you phone here too." Uri suggested, "You know…cell towers and all."


	19. Chapter 19

One day later:

"Doctor Rhodes? Could you do me a favor?" April asked quietly, almost conspiratorially, just as he appeared for the first time during her shift. He'd been up in surgery for most of the morning and early afternoon. She was beyond relieved when she caught sight of him. Everyone else was busy. The ED was packed.

His expression told her he would indeed assist. Yet she didn't give him a chance to say anything. Crowding him against the hallway wall she motioned for him to lean in.

"There is a male patient that just came in with lacerations to his hands and arm. He fits the general description of a man the police are looking for…could you go take a look? Tell me what you think?" Then spacing two fingers a fraction of a width apart she admitted, "I'm this close to calling security but am not one hundred percent. Maggie wants a second opinion too."

April then handed over a tablet.

As if on cue Maggie appeared at his side. Arms crossed, lips pressed together. "Did April tell you?"

"I was just about to," April nodded.

"Did you hear about what happened this morning," Maggie asked knowing he'd been in the operating room all morning. She wasn't shocked when he shook his head. Nor did she wait for him to ask. Quickly she filled him in. "The cops are looking for a man who surprised a woman in her apartment. Luckily her brother was with her and fought the guy off. He shoved the guy through a sliding glass door. From what the brother and sister said about the guy…it could be the Ripper."

Connor lifted an eyebrow.

April stepped in, "We just want you to go in there and see if it looks like he could have gone through a sliding glass door a couple hours ago. If so…"

"His injuries aren't life threatening. But his boss brought him in and the patient keeps threatening to leave." Maggie added.

Unsure one way or the other, Connor nodded that he would and looked to the room that April pointed out.

It wouldn't take long. It was satisfy April and Maggie, who's good side he intended to stay on. Plus he was a little curious himself.

On the way, he grabbed a new pair of exam gloves and stepped into the room pointed out. Greeting the patient, Connor pulled on the gloves and inquired how the man was doing without glancing up. However once the gloves were on and the tablet was out of the way he met the patients gaze.

It was like walking into a wall.

He met the man's gaze and in that second knew that he was looking at the Windy City Ripper.

Maggie and April were indeed correct. The man had injuries consistent from going through glass with outstretched hands. A amateur first aid job had been done on the man's hands and wrists. The white bandage wrapped around the wrist had been bled through on a while ago judging from the color of the blood stain.

Nothing about that alerted him to Maggie and April's suspicions.

The man wore khaki's and a pale blue button up shirt with a soft grey tie. Middle aged, a full head of chestnut hair with a Rolex. He could have been any man out of the business sector of the city.

No, it was the man's face that hit Connor like a punch to the gut.

Somewhat surprisingly the man wore a black eyepatch. Connor didn't see that every day. For some reason it didn't look ridiculous. It seemed to fit the guy. He had a certain charm, charisma.

Beneath that eyepatch was scar tissue.

Connor just knew.

The patient was ready. A disarming smile on his handsome face, "Slipped on ice and through the sliding door at the house. Can you believe it?"

Indeed he could believe it.

Not wanting the patient to know he was on to him, he played along. "Tis the season." Connor smiled congenially, "Let's have a look Mister…"

"Smith, Jason Smith," the man helpfully provided.

No wonder April and Maggie were so alarmed. That was a fake name if he ever heard one. And he'd heard quite a few over his years.

As quickly as he could he cleaned up the man's hands and wrists, stitched up a large gash in the left one after pulling a few sizable pieces of glass out. Only when he finished did he have a good excuse to leave, taking off his gloves he didn't throw them in the trash.

Under the guise of going to get a tetanus shot he left the room and grabbed the first clean bag he came across. A biohazard bag.

Stuffing the exam gloves in there he sealed them then went over to the nurses station where Maggie waited.

"It's him. Call security. I'll call the cops."

XXX000XXX000XXX

Sergeant Henry 'Hank' Voight simply could not believe.

He could not comprehend it.

It was almost unfathomable to him.

Was the universe that unfair?

Inside an evidence bag in his hand was a biohazard bag. Inside that bag were exam gloves from his suspect. Probably closer then he'd come yet in finding the Windy City Ripper. Doctor Connor Rhodes had been face to face with the man, and now that man was gone.

Sometime in the seconds before security arrived the man had slipped out.

The man hadn't even used a real name.

Surveillance footage was his last hope.

"He told me he was fifty. It looked like the right age." Maggie told him, having interacted with the man she was a wealth of knowledge. He'd have to return to speak with Doctor Rhodes who was already with another patient. "The things that stood out the most to me were his eye patch and the scar right beneath it."

Voight had already made a note of that fact.

Yet Maggie wanted to make a point about it, "You know…an injury to the eye severe enough to cause removal of an eye. That would require a specialist. It would require a significant amount of follow-up appointments and plastic surgery. From what I could see, the patient had some type of a piercing injury and on that part of the face…either he was very lucky, or he had reconstructive surgery."

Hank tilted his head, "What are you saying? In your professional opinion?"

Glancing around to be sure she wouldn't be overheard. Maggie glanced down at her sneakers, "I'm just saying…if someone I loved had an injury like that…there would only be a handful of physicians I'd take them to. That's a bad place to sustain an injury that bad. It'd be easy to make it worse if you don't have someone in the top of their field working on you."


	20. Chapter 20

Two days later:

"Who are you trying to get in touch with?" Will asked, noticing that not for the first time that day Connor glanced at his phone and frowned. Will had lost count of the times that Connor had done so and their shift had just ended.

Connor fought the urge to hurl his phone into his locker.

Dropping it instead into his scrub pants he glanced over at his ginger haired fellow doctor. "Neva. She's been ignoring me since yesterday."

Will's eyebrows met, "Trouble in paradise?"

Had Connor's phone not been in his pocket, he may have thrown it at Will. Grabbing a knit hat from his locker he jerked it on.

"Are you guys not together? It looked like you two were getting pretty cozy."

Looking upwards for guidance from somewhere, Connor sighed, "I don't know."

"Well if nothing's going on between you guys. One of the EMS guys was asking about her," Will lied, testing the waters. The immediate reaction he got from Connor confirmed his previous assumptions and brought a smirk onto his face. Yanking on a heavy winter jacket he barely managed to contain a laugh. "I wouldn't worry about her not answering her phone."

Remembering yesterday with an inward cringe Connor gritted his teeth. "Oh yeah? Why shouldn't I?"

"Have you not seen the news?"

Connor shook his head.

Upon zipping up his jacket, Will grabbed a pair of gloves from inside his locker. "Dude there was a big shootout down in Little Moscow. My brother was saying it was in retaliation for those fires. But none of the hospitals in the city got any gunshot wounds in from males of Eastern European or Russian descent. Think about it. Neva's not answering her phone…she's probably got her hands full. Besides, after that last investigation her brother was suspected in, her family knows how cell towers work. I'd be shocked if any of them owned a cell phone."

XX00XX00XX

It was very near midnight when Neva arrived home.

Exhausted, hungry, irritable, smelling of antiseptic hand wash and wearing her brother's clothing.

Not Alexei's clothing, oh no. She had on a pair of Uri's jeans held up with a belt that had a double headed golden eagle buckle the size of both her fists. A Harley Davidson shirt that hung on her like an oversized potato sack. On top of that was a heavy leather jacket that smelled like a garage and nearly reached her knees.

Fortunately she managed to keep her pumps clean.

When she got out of her elevator with her first aid kit in a massive tackle box, she spotted a note taped to her door. Connor's writing was scribbled on it. She ignored it and dug out her keys, beyond ready to drop down on the couch and sleep.

Around the time she managed to match the correct key to the correct lock, she heard her cell phone going off.

Wasn't that just her luck?

In the time it took her to get inside the phone continued to ring. Instinct alone had Neva running over to it. When she saw Connor's name on the caller ID she hit the button to refuse the call.

She then closed the door and locked it.

A few moments later the phone rang again.

It was Connor.

Neva hadn't eaten in what felt like days and when she thought about it, she couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten. She declined that call and went into the kitchen with a purpose. Leftover Chinese food was the only thing on her mind. She'd managed to dig it out, dump it on a plate and toss it in the microwave before answering another call from the man.

By then she'd eaten one pork dumpling and was on her second. When she answered the phone it was a one syllable answer with food in her mouth. "What?"

Connor's voice boomed from the phone, full of righteous fury. "Where the hell have you been? Do they not have phones there?"

Deciding that she needed a beverage, Neva walked over to her cabinet for a glass.

"I don't know who you think you're talking to. But you need to check your tone." Then she set down the glass and asked, "Have you eaten today? How are you feeling?"

"Well if you would have answered my calls you'd know. Where were you?"

Neva walked over to the fridge to grab a can of soda. Deciding that she didn't need a glass, she popped the top and took a sip while willing the microwave to speed up. "Out. Look I'm hungry, I'm tired and I need to eat. Before I say something I'm going to regret, I'm going to hang up. We'll hang out later." She pressed the call end button and wished she had a phone from her childhood that she could slam down. Pressing a screen was so less rewarding.

Neva did however turn off her phone. After that she ate her plate loaded up with Chinese at an impressive rate of speed.

Irritated too, on top of everything. Neva tried to decide if she wanted to call him back to further argue with the man. After a few hearty sips of her Cherry 7Up she decided against it. Families argued. Couples argued. Close friends argued. Neva wasn't entirely sure where the two of them fell on that particular scale. Normally fond of grey areas, she wasn't a fan that night.

Tired of smelling motor oil and engine fluid she shrugged out of Uri's coat, tossed it on the counter and then stepped out of her shoes. Her brother's baggy pants puddled around her feet. She felt ridiculous and headed towards the bathroom for a therapeutic shower.

Once inside she quickly brushed her teeth and got a good look at her face.

Dark circles were obvious beneath her eyes. A messy bun sat on the top of her head. One of her white gold hoops was missing from her ear.

Neva slipped off her watch and washed her hands one more time when sounds came from outside her bathroom. Loud noisy banging sounds that could wake up all her neighbors and they were already on the edge about having her as a neighbor.

As a result, Neva hurried through her apartment towards the pounding noises.

When she peered through the peephole she got a good look at Connor.

Flipping all the locks as he continued to pound away. She yanked the door open with a fury she hadn't summoned up in hours, possibly since that afternoon. When she whipped that door open, she was fit to be tied. "What the hell is your problem?" She hissed in absolute disbelief, especially when she saw he still had on his red scrubs and his coat. Nothing else. No hat, not gloves, no scarf. His hair was wet too. "Are you trying to get pneumonia?"

"Are you trying to drive me crazy? You vanished off the face of the earth for two days!" He shot right back, storming past her into the apartment. "For all I know you could have moved to Korea again!"

Neva quickly shut the door to keep what she suspected would be a pretty spectacular argument moderately private.

She also gave the idea of moving back to her house in Korea some thought.

It was tempting.

At first he didn't seem to notice the smell. Connor was a bit too aggravated. Gesturing to further his point, he expressed himself. "Look…I really need to know where you are right now. After the other day and Downey being sick…I need to know you're not going to just run off. It's not rational. I can't explain it. But I need something to be stable. Something has to be solid! And you know what else?"

She shook her head and shrugged simultaneously.

His index finger pointed right at her, "I don't want to be friends anymore either. If someone asks me, I want to say that we're together."

"Is that it," she snapped with her hands on her hips.

"You smell like a garage," he finished.


	21. Chapter 21

Pressing her fingertips to her forehead, Neva selected what would and would not be acceptable to say in her current state. Said state was not fit for company, or conducent to good decision making. Throwing him out so she could make good rational choices was ideal. But it was not going to happen. Not when her brain was not functioning on the same level as her conscience. At this point in her life, she knew that her decisions had lasting impact. She couldn't just run off to Belize and crash for a month or two till things blew over. Connor wasn't something she wanted to blow over either.

Having taken a moment she held up her hand.

Seeming far calmer then she actually felt, Neva forced the words out. "Listen up and listen good homeboy. You're going to take me out to dinner. It will be in a nice fancy restaurant. Like tomorrow…or the next day…and there we will talk about not being friends with benefits anymore. Just like normal people do. I'll dress up and you'll pay for dinner. Is that suitable?"

Connor nodded that it was sufficient.

"Fantastic," she sighed. "Now you can either go home. Or, you can help me get out of these clothes. I'm tired and I'm smelly. We can argue about this later. You're making an already crappy evening go even further downhill."

If Connor heard her final words he didn't make it known.

"Where were you? Where could you have possibly been for two days that lacked telephone service? We're in Chicago not Siberia. I'm not going anywhere until you explain to me what is going on with you."

With a snap of her fingers and a wave of her hand, she glared. "Connor! Really! You really want to do this? I have absolutely no clue who I brought back from the brink to have the universe hand you over to me, like some kind of a gift! Women like me don't normally get men like you! So you're just going to have to bear with me. But I am trying very hard to keep things from getting messy. We're around the time when you start figuring out what a hot mess I am, and then realize that I'm so not worth the effort."

His eyebrows met.

Connor was surprised by what came out of her mouth.

Bewildered, he shook his head, "Are you delusional? I don't care about any of that stuff. You are always going to be that young woman who slept in a bathtub wearing her tactical vest and helmet, no matter what country you were in, to me. Nothing that's been going on these past few weeks could ever make me look at you differently."

She just stared.

It'd been a while since she had worn her Kevlar to sleep in the safety of a tub. Thinking about it brought back fond memories. Neva bit her bottom lip, unsure what to say next. It was quite possibly the sweetest thing he'd ever said to her. Back then she had an amazing tan and was fifteen pounds lighter, "Do you mean it?"

Connor took a couple steps until he could wrap his arms around her, and pull her against him.

Tightly he held her against him while he pressed his lips against the top of her head.

"Every time you make that face at me, I think of the first time we met. When you were tanning by the pool outside our hotel in Dubai. Do you remember? You had on a pair of men's PT shorts rolled up and your Kevlar vest with that helmet. All of your coworkers were swimming in the pool in their Kevlar vests. You were throwing coins into the pool for them to pick up off the bottom. I'd never seen anything quite like it."

Neva nodded against his chest, "I still have those Ray Ban sunglasses."

Connor sank his fingers into her hair and got a whiff of a uniquely antiseptic fragrance. "I'll always think of you calling out denomination and country before tossing them into pool, whenever I hear your voice on the phone." He then kissed the top of her head again. "Now do me a favor and lift up your arms. These clothes are putting off enough fumes to make my eyes water."

Discreetly Neva wiped her eyes as she stepped back and lifted up her arms.

The shirt was lifted up and tossed over by the door. She'd taken a shower before she left Uri's auto-body shop, but there wasn't much lying around for her to change into.

Connor actually paused when he set eyes on the large belt buckle.

"Impressive isn't it," she asked.

"There are no words," he admitted.

With minimal effort the belt came unhooked and a second or two later the jeans puddled around her feet. Connor kissed her that next moment, completely taking her by surprise. Everything he hadn't told her about the way he felt about her was put into his kiss and touch. He backed her a few steps back into the hallway shedding his own coat and scrub top.

Neva stopped him when she realized he was leading her towards the living room.

"No," she shook her head. "The shower…I'll never get this smell out of the couch."

In total agreement he nodded then confessed, "You know…I never thought I'd be turned on by the sight of men's underwear. But it really works on you."

She glanced down at the sight of Calvin Klein boxer briefs. "I refused to wear my brother's spare clothes home unless he went out to buy me a package of clean underwear. This is what he bought me."

Connor kissed her again, until she melted against him and wrapped her arms around his neck. It wasn't long before her legs wrapped around his waist and he wound up walking both of them down the hallway to the shower. It was a significant while longer before her feet found solid footing on the floor.

XXIIXXIIXXIIXXIIXX

Somewhere around four am Neva's cordless phone began to go off on her nightstand.

It pierced a deep sleep, one that had encompassed her in darkness seconds after her wet head had dropped down on her pillow.

Yet, at the electronic noises, she reached blindly into her dark bedroom.

Thoughts of Natalia flashed through her brain in a sobering wakeup. By the time she had found the cordless, pressed the button and put it to her ear she was awake. "Yep," was the greeting she gave whoever had called at that hour. Without glasses or contacts her caller id was nothing but a glowing blur.

Beside her in the bed she felt Connor stir at the intrusion to his sleep.

His brain woke up just as quickly as Neva's with thoughts of the hospital. His body on the other hand lodged a formal complaint. Under all the warm blankets and cushioned into the gel memory foam mattress, he was as close to heaven on earth as he was going to get. The scantily clad woman mere inches away sealed his heaven on earth theory.

Judging from her tone, whoever had called didn't call with an emergency.

There were no names exchanged or raised voices. The fact that she spoke quietly so as not to bother him made him curious.

Who on earth was called at four in the morning? According to his watch.

Connor lifted his head from the pillows as a soft laugh came from her side of the bed. He managed to catch the tail end of, "…no don't worry about it. Connor's here. I'll grab some cash out of his wallet. He's making that doctors money. Ok. See you in a little bit."

When she clicked off the phone her hand reached across the bed to pat whatever part of him she came into contact with, it happened to be his chest. "David has his appetite back."

Unsure where this was going, he lifted an eyebrow when she managed to turn on a lamp on her bedside table.

She grabbed a pair of wire rimmed glasses and slid them on.

Connor found them even more attractive than when she was wearing her contacts. Although her hair was a mess and she was only wearing socks and a pair of panties with a screen-printed solar system on them, so there was a strong possibility that had something to do with his fondness for her glasses.

"So we're going to go pick him up something?"

Not that he minded. David had been looking a little green around the gills for the past couple days. A new medication that had killed his appetite. The most he'd seen him eat was a handful of crackers and hot tea.

Neva leaned over to kiss the top of his head. "Don't you have work in a few hours?"

"No," Connor shook his head. "Three to eleven, I switched with Choi incase Downey got bad news at his appointment this morning. You're going with him right?"

"Of course I am. I promised to let him drive my Jeep if he let me see his labwork."


	22. Chapter 22

Connor parked in front of a large brick house in one of Chicago's older neighborhoods. A neighborhood that housed doctors, lawyers and various other high earning professionals, all of whom were getting up and going through their early morning routines when Connor and Neva arrived. A fresh dusting of snow covered the recently plowed street. When Connor stepped out of the Wrangler, the snow went up to his ankles in the driveway that had yet to be shoveled.

With a light snow still falling he went around the Jeep to help Neva out. Muttering about the absurdity of it still.

When he opened the door, she slid two feet clad in black patent leather pumps out and into the snow. A mutinous look on her face. "Quit making that face. These are my winter heels. Just look at how well they slice through that snow and secure me to the driveway with that heel. See?"

Rolling his eyes, Connor helped her out to be sure she didn't slip, or drop the large brown paper bag full of Chinese food.

He had to admit she walked pretty steadily up the driveway. Chalking it up to one of the mysteries of womanhood, he followed her up the snow covered walkway and brick staircase careful not to slip himself. Connor wasn't at all surprised to see the door open before they ascended the stairs.

Neva stomped her feet to knock off as much snow as possible before going inside. Using her free arm she hugged David, taking note of his pallor he and how tired he looked that morning. Inwardly she hoped some food might put color on his cheeks. But she knew better. Cancer didn't work like that and it was obviously winning.

"Did you make tea?"

"Of course I made tea," David answered. Connor watched Neva step out of her shoes and go off in the spacious house as if she belonged there. David gave him a knowing look, "I heard you changed shifts because of my oncology appointment? Tell me I'm not looking that bad."

"You're not looking that bad," Connor lied, shrugging out of his winter coat.

"Well you look horrible. Did you get any sleep last night? You're not twenty years old anymore. You can't burn that proverbial candle at both ends much longer." David watched the younger man hang up his coat and shed his shoes before he patted him on the back. "Come. Let's go eat. We have things to discuss."

Connor had a sinking feeling they were end of life type things.

XXIIXXIIXXIIXXIIXXIIXX

After dropping Connor off at his apartment, Neva headed over to the subdivision of mansions where her father lived with the current wife and various family members to pick up Natalia. Luckily the child was suited up and ready to be dropped off at her private school. So Neva only had to answer a few questions about the upcoming wedding, who she was bringing and if she had eaten yet that morning. Definitively she answered the first, vaguely for the second and the third not at all considering her father thought of breakfast as a holy sacrament.

Along the ride Natalia chatted about Uncle Alexei helping with her math homework. Uncle Alexei being a an accountant did not cause Neva any alarm.

Natalia mentioned that her Uncle Uri had told her about the Cold War when she did her history homework. Considering how much History Channel Uri watched, Neva wasn't concerned about that either.

However when mention was made of her Grandfather helping with her Civics homework. Neva almost rear-ended the minivan in the drop-off line at the school.

"What exactly did your grandfather tell you?"

Kicking her feet Natalia shrugged as best as she could with her casted arm in a sling. "He told me about the most important amendment that we have available to us in the event we find ourselves captured or interrogated. So I wrote my essay on that one."

Neva's eyebrows met in the middle of her forehead, "Which one is that?"

Even though she knew the answer because she had heard that lecture more than once in her own childhood and adolescence.

"The fifth," Natalia answered as the Jeep inched closer. "Grandpa gave me cards for his favorite criminal defense attorney. You know…just in case." She then winked exaggeratedly. "You want one? I've got like ten."

Shaking her head, Neva asked about the essay and by the time she'd inched up to the drop off point, she was positive she'd be getting a call from the school by the end of the day. Much like when Natalia wrote a book report for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The school had called then too. Natalia had been the only person in her class to refer to Captain Nemo as a homicidal lunatic. She'd even used various FBI criminal profiles to prove her point.

With a flash of red from her coat, the child was out in a flash. Backpack bouncing on her cast free side.

Neva watched to be sure Natalia made it inside the school before she drove back to her apartment. If she planned her morning just right she could sleep a few hours, then shower and go pick up David for his appointment. On her short ride home she debated between her bed or the couch.

Odds were leaning in favor for the bed when she pulled into the parking lot for her building. Quickly she put the Jeep into park and turned it off, then reached into the backseat where she had tossed her purse. A tapping on one of her windows made her jump and gasp, very likely pulling a muscle in her leg from the sudden jerk in her extended position.

When she saw Voight outside of her passenger window motioning for her to unlock the door, a string of profanities spilled from her lips.

Sitting up she reached over to flip the lock.

The police commander climbed inside the passenger seat quickly. He shut the door hard enough to shake the vehicle. Glancing over at Neva with his piercing gaze, Voight lifted his eyebrows. "You've been hard to track down these past few days."

Neva said nothing in response.

"Ok, Neva look," he began, resting his leather gloved hands on his legs. Voight's eyes darted from her to the parking lot and back. "Is there somewhere you can go for a few days? Could you go stay with your family?"

Neva looked at him as if he told her he spotted a UFO, and had a close encounter. "Why don't you go stay with my family?"

He gave her a look that was not at all amused.

"Listen…" Voight began, a bit more forcefully. "…those letters and notes you've been sending me, well they're getting very aggressive. The Ripper's past two attempted attacks have be interrupted and the one before that had a surviving victim."

She held his gaze but said nothing in response.

Holding two fingers a smidgen apart, Voight went on, "We're this close to identifying this guy. He's spiraling. There is no telling what he'll do next. I really believe you're in danger."

One of Neva's hands began to rub her temple. "I don't have time for this right now. I'll be fine. If he can't even pull off a murder anymore, I doubt he'll be as dangerous to me should he track my ass down." She then heard the words, protective custody, and threw both her hands up in protest. "No, no, no, we're not doing that, I don't have time for any of that."

Frustrated Voight hissed at her, "I don't think you're taking this seriously."

Resting her other arm on her steering wheel, she put considerable effort into keeping her cool. As this was not what she wanted to hear, or how she wanted to start her day. "Are you telling me that I am in more danger here, in America, in Chicago? Opposed to when I was in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, Saudi Arabia just off the top of my head? Are you telling me that those places are safer for me?"

When he said nothing, she added, "You don't have to worry about me. I'm not afraid of him. Just catch him."


	23. Chapter 23

The waiting room was like many others that Neva had sat in.

Pastel walls. Uncomfortable chairs. Magazines from newsstands from new to six months old. Numerous pamphlet stands on various forms of chemo, radiation, new drugs and various organizations that supported cancer patients.

Neva took a seat in a chair near a fish tank and cracked open her newest book. She'd picked up to catch up on her reading. In her years away from home she had missed out on numerous best sellers.

Unfortunately Neva could not enjoy her book.

Not because David was back in the doctor office's exam rooms with his oncologist. No, she wasn't worried because he hadn't been worried. She was a more curious about the lab results.

What distracted Neva from her book was a heavily heavily pregnant woman who had arrived with a relative.

Seated a few chairs down from her, she noticed just how uncomfortable and restless the woman was since she'd arrived. She also noticed how low the baby was when the woman shed her coat. Neva said every prayer she knew that the woman would not go into labor. Neva hated delivering babies. Granted she'd never delivered one in a hospital. Usually it was in a third world country and not her favorite thing to do. Give her a sucking chest wound any day.

Plus she had on a gorgeous cashmere sweater that was not labor and delivery friendly.

Neva tried her very best to concentrate on the girl who was on a train.

After a while of trying hard and eyeing the woman who couldn't seem to get comfortable, Neva had to ask. "How far along are you?"

"Three days past my due date," she sighed.

Neva frowned.

She glanced at the receptionist and the clock above her on the wall. David had been in the office almost half an hour. He'd been going in to get lab results and discuss his current course of treatment. If she were to guess, he'd be in there ten minutes more at the most.

Doing her hardest, Neva turned back to her book while keeping an eye on the pregnant woman.

It was less than ten minutes, closer to five, when Downey came out of the door near the receptionist. Friendly words were exchanged between the two before he headed over to where Neva was seated. In his hands were a few papers which he handed over to her, "As promised."

She gave him a knowing smile, before glancing once more at the woman and putting her book in her purse. "Come on. Let's get out of here before her water breaks."

David glanced over at the woman and smiled kindly.

The woman returned his smile, "I like your shirt." Said shirt was a tropical scene with hula dancers and palm trees and flowers. A small conversation popped up between the two as Neva handed over his coat, hat and scarf. She flipped through several pages of numerous series of lab work. A full workup had been done.

Purse over her shoulder and coat over her arm, she strolled towards the door and waited for the two to finish their chit-chat. Using that time she looks over all the tests. Her heart sank further with every piece of paper.

When David eventually came over to the door she shoved the papers in her purse.

The two walked down the carpeted hallway to where the elevators were that would take them downstairs in companionable silence.

Only when they were in the empty elevator did he smirk, "Could you have gotten away from that woman any faster?"

"Yes," Neva snapped. "You were holding up the works," she accused knowing he would laugh softly, which he did. She further made him smile after hitting the button for the ground floor. "Seriously David, every time we hang out something happens. There was that domestic last time, that I wound up riding in an ambulance for and the time before that was the kid who fell down an escalator. Oh oh! Who could forget that teenager who wrapped his car around a tree."

Remembering, David clasped his hands infront of him and nodded, "His parents still send me a card every year at Christmas."

Neva made a noise as she shrugged her coat on.

"I can assure you child," he smiled. "The only person who needs any medical attention around us today, is me."

"It better be," she warned. Gesturing at her thigh length sweater that draped on her in a heavenly way. "Because this is cashmere. Neva is not delivering babies in something from Saks."

David watched his smile grow in the steel elevator doors.

The two began to discuss a coffee and tea break on their way home as the elevator went down. By the time they walked through the lobby of the medical plaza it had begun to snow again. Neva began to dig through her purse for her keys. David looked upwards at the falling snow, "Is that British tea place still open? The one that imports all its teas?"

After a brief amount of digging her fingers wrapped around the keys and she glanced up, thinking about his question. "I have no clue…you've been in this city more than I have in the past decade. We can look it up on my phone though. Natalia showed me how." A smile tugged on her lips at that last remark. A heartily laugh came from David that sent him into a coughing spell.

As he fought to get the cough under control, she looked around the parking lot and watched a teenager run towards them in what could only be described as significant emotional distress.

Blood stained the young man's puffy ski coat and his hands. Eyes wide in panic and iPhone in hand. The young man cried out, "We need a doctor! Someone got hit by a car!"

Neva's gaze narrowed dangerously at David.

"I didn't do it," was his immediate response.

"Cashmere David."

Ignoring that last remark David looked to the college aged male, "We can help."

"I'm not a doctor," she protested.

"Hush Neva."


	24. Chapter 24

Neva was beyond irritated.

There was a big difference between someone getting hit by a car, and someone getting hit by a car then run over and stuck under it. Once the ambulance arrived and took the poor soul to the hospital, she intended to explain the difference to the teenage Good Samaritan.

Not that she minded a bad accident. She just needed to be prepared for it. Information was essential. Information was the difference between some road rash with a possible broken bone, or a possible amputation and depressed skull fracture.

Flat on her stomach on the wet cold grimy parking lot, she surveyed the scene before her with appraising eyes. She then informed David, "The leg will come free with minimal effort but we'll need to prepare it. Right now it's not bleeding heavily. He's going to bleed significantly once that pressure is relieved."

A low moan continued to come from the victim.

It both filled them with a small degree of optimism since he was alive, however both David and Neva suspected that the pedestrian had a skull fracture. David had shared that information with the 911 dispatcher. Just the torso was exposed from beneath the large black SUV, allowing David to monitor the young man. A professional judging by his suit. Lawyer or Pharmaceutical Rep were David's guesses.

Quickly David removed his scarf and motioned for the small crowd around the vehicle to hand over scarves and belts.

On his hands and knees he peered under the vehicle.

"Has the artery retracted?"

There was some moving around followed by the sound of cloth ripping. A moment or so later Neva answered, "No. It's intact and exposed. The femur is exposed too. I can't find the knee, but I can see a shoe and pant leg."

A few gasps and noises came from the small crowd. Some were genuinely interested in helping and had gone into the medical plaza to get what David requested, others had called 911 and handed over what they could to help. Others just watched.

When the belts and scarves were handed over David pushed them under the car.

"Here…how's the other leg?"

Some more shuffling came followed by, "Surprisingly intact. The ankle has sustained significant damage though."

Frowning, he wished he could crawl under there to see why she was being so vague. "What kind of damage?"

A pause was followed by, "I'm looking down at the bottom of his shoe."

A grimace crossed his features as Neva's ankles were exposed. If he strained, he would be able to see the young man's head and the sole of his shoe, all due to the angle of twist his ankle had undergone.

Neva motioned for David to lean a little closer.

David did, having an inkling of why.

She pointed to the man's thigh up on the axel, a belt in her hand. Quietly she told him, "I have one on but he's still bleeding and he'll bleed more when we extricate him. I need to do a few more. But once I get that many tourniquets on…reattachment may not be possible. They need to be tight to prevent him from bleeding out. It'll cut off blood to the tissue he has left down there." Needing a quick second opinion before she moved on to more tourniquets.

Fully understanding he motioned for her to go on, "He can live without that part of the leg. He cannot live if he bleeds to death. Just do it. That's why we have prosthetics."

With a nod she wiggled back under but not before requesting one last thing. "Have someone get me some sort of a clip or clamp and tape. And a clean trash bag for the…you know, just in case they can reattach it."

Even from where she'd wedged herself underneath the vehicle she could see David didn't look too hopeful. Had she been in one of the previous countries she worked in, she wouldn't have thought twice about it. Things were different in the United States in civilian healthcare. Amputations didn't happen as frequently. Granted Neva had never seen an IED go off in downtown Chicago doing the damage she was used to seeing. She just wanted to double check that she wasn't slipping into that former mindset. It was safe to say, she wasn't in Kansas anymore and her comfort zone was thousands of miles away.

XXOOXXOOXXOOXXOOXX

"What the hell happened to you?" Olya demanded in utter disbelief and no longer on her way out of Neva's apartment.

Her eyes were wide and she actually took a step back as Neva began to peel wet, dirty, grime and road salt covered clothes that were accented with stains of blood off. Neva wasn't even going to bother taking the sweater to the dry cleaner.

There was no hope.

Her Jeep, however, had to go get detailed. She couldn't wait to see the expressions of the people when they saw the front seats of her ride.

"I don't want to talk about it," she grumbled right before dropping the once lovely article of clothing onto her entranceway. It landed with a wet sickening noise. Then realizing that Olya was in her apartment at nearly one she inquired, "What are you doing here?"

Olya darted into another room to grab a waste basket. When she returned with it, Neva dropped the sweater in it and then began to peel off her knee high suede boots. Hopes were high for the boots. It looked like they just had water damage. "I was hiding cash in your pantry. Those coffee tins on the top shelf."

Once Neva made the mistake of asking why.

Only once.

Olya told her in total seriousness, that they needed to be prepared in the event that the communists overthrow the government. Neva never again asked after that response.

One by one the boots came off and were tossed aside.

"Anyway, it's a good thing I caught you."

Neva made a noise.

Olya ignored the noise and turned to the side as the younger woman began to peel off her jeans. "Your father is on his way home from Canada. He knows about the notes and letters being left on your door. So prepare for a defense. He's adamant that you come stay in the big house."

Immediately she stood, having little luck getting the jeans that were plastered to her skin beyond her pelvis. "What! How'd he find out?"

Disgustedly she shrugged, "How the hell should I knew? Your father has spies and snitches and informants all over the city. His snitches have snitches for crying out loud. There is no telling how he found out, but Alexei's going to text me when they're close."

Something that Olya said made Neva stand up and pause.

Olya looked at her with concern, "What is it?"

A few moments passed as Neva thought it over. Contemplatively she asked, "Does Daddy have people watching me?"

Olya was quiet.

"Outside the building," Neva pressed.

Olya glanced down at her newly manicured nailed, "Maybe."

Thoughts continued to build up and Neva forget her jeans. She crouched down and began to dig through her purse. Hands sticky from previous attempts to wash them that had not proven one hundred percent effective. In the end she wound up dumping the contents onto her floor, where she spotted her phone tumble out. Concerned, Olya watched, though she stayed where she stood. If she got any closer she would see Neva's back and that was something she made great efforts to never see again.

Neva flipped through her phone till she found whatever she sought. When she found it she stood, grabbed a clean leather jacket from the coat-tree then hurried out the door.

"Neva! You need shoes!" Olya scolded, right on her heels with a pair of pumps she grabbed by the apartment door.

Only when they were in the elevator and heading down did Neva slip on the shoes, that was after she zipped herself into her jacket. Olya didn't have the heart to tell her that her hair was a mess. Or that she had gravel and salt stuck on the side of her face and in her hair. It was only then when Neva showed her the phone. "Here, look, Connor put up cameras. He got the guy on film and screenshotted it. We sent Voight these pictures but maybe Daddy's minions might have seen him? Or can track this guy down?"


	25. Chapter 25

Connor was a bit surprised to see a middle aged man, covered with tattoos, reading an issue of People magazine, seated in a lawn chair right beside Neva's apartment door. So surprised, he double checked the apartment number to be sure he was on the right floor.

Surely his three to eleven had not been that hard on him.

When Connor approached the door with his key he drew the attention of the balding man. Lifting his head the man narrowed his eyes. The man's accent was incredibly heavy, "You doctor?"

"Um…yeah," Connor nodded still slightly bewildered.

With a wave of his hand, he made a dismissive noise then looked back down at his magazine. One had to keep up to date on Kim and Kanye.

Quickly unlocking the door and opening it, Connor paused, "And who are you?"

"Sergei," the man answered without glancing up.

"Got it," was his answer right before he slipped inside and locked the door. Connor kicked off his shoes, dropped his backpack on the couch and headed through the apartment. On his journey, he peeked into Natalia's room to see the little girl asleep in her bed. A stuffed unicorn clutched to her chest with her non-plaster covered arm.

Next he peeked around the master bedroom until he noticed a light on in the master bathroom.

The door was just cracked open.

When he pushed it open further, a cloud of steam billowed out. From the doorway he could just make out two feet perched on the edge of a large tub further back in the bathroom.

Slipping inside he pulled the door closed.

At the sound Neva's head popped up. When she saw him it disappeared back beneath the top of the tub. A far larger tub then his bathroom had with a new backsplash in shades of blue glass. As attractive as it was, it was really uncomfortable to lean against for an extended amount of time, as he came to find out.

"So um…what's up with Sergei out there? He seems nice."

Connor approached the tub and heard the exact same dismissive noise from her, one that he'd heard from the guy outside of her front door.

A floral fruity smell grew stronger as he neared the tub and when he was able to peer down in it, the water was a dark shade of purple. Steam rose off the water. Two wrappers from gourmet chocolate toffee sea-salt bars were on the floor near a book that he'd seen frequently around the hospital.

Curious he reached down to feel the water temperature. About as hot as he expected with all that steam.

"Sergei stays till the Ripper is caught," she complained from where she rested, surrounded by purple water. Arms hidden beneath said purple. Connor couldn't even make out her hair. A glance over his shoulder confirmed his suspicions. The clear glass vase containing lilac bath bombs the size of a baseball from that store in the mall was half empty. "How many of those things did you put in there?"

"Four," she answered shamelessly.

Squatting down, he folded his arms on the tub then rested his chin on top. "Bad day?"

That noise came from her again.

She did however manage a few more syllables, "Downey's lab work is on my bed."

Neva remained where she was, in her cocoon of steaming water where she could soak her troubles away before sliding into bed like a limp noodle. Such was her plan for the evening after her interminably long day. It'd only been forty minutes or so since her father left in a fury. Leaving Sergei had been the only compromise they could reach, and that was only after the cops had been called by a neighbor. Essentially Ivan had to leave or risk arrest for disturbing the peace. Or so said Officers Woo and Ford. Considering how loud their shouting had been she couldn't blame the neighbors. Russian was not a pretty language to hear yelled through walls.

Of course that hadn't even been the worse part of her day. The worse part was on her bed where she'd left it.

She wasn't at all shocked when Connor came into the bathroom again, a look of defeat on his face.

"Mind if I join you?"

Pulling her legs back into the water she pushed herself into a quasi-seated lounged position. Not full on lounge, with ankles straight to the ceiling and head under water nearly up to her nose any longer. "Please, misery loves company." Water drained down out of her hair in pale purple streams.

Resting her head on the wall she watched him shed his clothes and couldn't even take her usual amount of enjoyment out of it.

The water was indeed uncomfortably hot for Connor.

Connor however was no quitter. Slowly he sank down into the liquid and pretended that he was at a spa. It wouldn't stay that sweltering forever. Purple water rose up around his waist, perilously close to the edge of the tub. Mere inches from the top. Neva however did not seem concerned. Her legs slid around his waist with her feet coming to rest on the bottom of the tub. All while her fingers tentatively began to run softly over his back and shoulders. After a bit, he began to lean back as he became accustomed to the water temperature. Eventually he reclined back against Neva, gesturing for her fingers to migrate north and show his shoulders special attention. His knees poked up from the water.

If Connor looked up he could see her face and that cursed backsplash. However he had no real intention of craning his neck. Not when her fingers were doing magical things to his broad shoulders.

"I'm glad I found you here. I don't think I could go through losing him alone," she confessed.

One of his hands reached up to stroke her face.

Not her hands, he didn't want them to stop. Not when they were doing things to his muscles, things that very possibly were up there with carnal pleasure on the wonderful scale. Neva turned her face to press her lips against his hand. Thus causing a brief pause in her kneading. Being totally unacceptable to him, he motioned for her to keep up the good work. A smile crossed her lips at his gesturing so she continued. She did however lean over to press her lips on the top of his head.

"So I found out what noodling is today. Did you know its legal in this state?"

"I don't even know what noodling is," Connor confessed.

"It was on the news. People go in lakes, and rivers, to shove their arms down underwater holes. All to catch a catfish barehanded. Did you know it's illegal in Missouri? I can't believe it. You'd think that it would be the other way around."

Connor did glance up at her face to express, "Do you realize how much you enrich my days? I could have gone my whole life not knowing about noodling. What a crime."

She kissed him square on the forehead in response.

"Oh…" he groaned suddenly. Suddenly and magnificently overwhelmed as something in his upper back popped, then felt fantastic. "Just keep doing that right there. That feels amazing. I'll buy you anything you want if you keep doing it."

"With your doctor money," she teased as he slid back into place.

"All my doctor money," he moaned.

She couldn't help notice how tense his muscles were. They were very likely as tense as she felt. Remembering the past few days he'd had, she made sure to venture down along his spine. Way down to the small of his back only further endearing herself to him. Her fingers continued around his neck, over his shoulders and into his hair which he seemed to find particularly calming.

When his dark hair was well on its way to being wet, she brought up, "I have my final interview with your hospital tomorrow."

"Oh," his voice was in a state of pure relaxation.

"Uh huh, I meet my representative at eight thirty and at ten we meet with the hospital to go over my contract. If all goes well, I'll have a day job for the next six months to a year."

Connor did glance up at that, "You can't just…go get a job on your own?"

She made a face, "You are so cute. And no, I didn't spend nearly a decade in various war zones all over the place to make what you make here."

"You're such a humanitarian," he remarked.

Grinning she pushed his face aside. A smirk spread over her lips and mutterings in Russian came from her that led him curious. As soon as he made himself comfortable in a relaxed position he asked, "What does that mean?"

"It means you should learn Russian if you want to know."


	26. Chapter 26

Connor woke up to smells of coffee.

Nestled in Neva's bed, he rolled his head to the side to check his phone for the time and any messages. Seeing it was close to six thirty he made the executive decision to get up. Plus the bed was empty. So if he didn't get up, he wouldn't be able to bid Neva a fond farewell. He could always crawl back in bed later.

Rolling out of bed, his barefeet hit the carpet and he stood.

After adjusting the sweat pants and scrub top he'd slept in, he strolled out of the bedroom and down the hallway to the kitchen where the smells originated.

Natalia sat on a stool at the countertop eating waffles with one hand. A big black trash bag covering her served as a poncho. No food was on the floor, but there was a little bit of maple syrup on the hefty bag protecting her school uniform. She was telling something to Neva in Russian when Connor appeared. Upon seeing Connor, she switched over to English midsentence. "…and then I told Miss Sorrels that I did not think it would be unreasonable for me to become Queen of the Universe. For reals, the glue eater Tommy thinks he can be a neurosurgeon. So I told her that when I became Queen of the Universe, I would make her my pet-slave and she would have to dance on command like a trained monkey. And that's why she wants to speak with you. So you have to sign that note for me."

Leaning over, Connor rested his elbows on the counter. Natalia gave him a 'can you believe it' look in reference to her school note situation.

With her back to the two of them Neva sighed, "Fine. I'll sign it. Am I going to have to make another donation to the school?" Putting the finishing touches on her hot tea, she turned and only briefly paused at the sight of him.

Natalia shook her head, "Not yet…but the day is still young."

"How many donations have you made to the school," Connor smirked.

Neva scowled at him, "That's not important." She then went over to the counter and set her mug down, so she could sign the note in question.

After a few more bites of her waffle Natalia glanced over at Connor. "You're pretty hairy." With a sigh she looked back at her orange juice. "My Dad was hairy too." Gesturing to the V in his shirt, "He had hair on his chest. Uncle Alexei doesn't. He waxes his chest."

Neva rolled her eyes at mention of that particular brother.

Able to suppress a laugh, Connor nodded, "I hear some men do that…it's pretty painful."

Sipping her juice Natalia added, "Uncle Alexei says it's worth the pain. His number three girlfriend likes hairless men and she is apparently crazy, but not in a bad way. Uncle Uri told me I'd understand when I'm older and not to listen to anything out of Uncle Alexei's mouth. Uncle Uri doesn't wax his chest. He doesn't like crazy women either."

"Will you eat your breakfast? Please? We have to leave in a few minutes," Neva cried, making mental notes to give her brothers a piece of her mind.

After finishing up the additional notes on the note for Natalia's teacher, she folded it up and stuffed it in the backpack on the floor. She then took a hearty sip of her tea. "I need to go put some perfume on and find some earrings. When I come back you better be done with breakfast."

An eye roll came from Natalia that she elected to ignore since the child came by it naturally.

On her way out of the kitchen, she patted Connor on the posterior firmly enough that the man stood up straight up in surprised response.

Natalia cocked an eyebrow at him, having missed the exchange, "Are you ok?"

"I stepped on something," he lied.

She frowned, but turned back to her breakfast, wondering about the world of adults and adulting.

Connor watched Neva walk off and when he was positive she was in her room, he looked back to Natalia. Grabbing Neva's tea he smelled it, then took a sip. "How's your Russian?"

"How's your English?"

"Ok," he said, then he repeated what Neva had told him that night as best as he could remember. Then he asked, "So what does that mean in Russian."

Natalia scrunched up her face at the mangled words. "It means you need to learn Russian."

Sighing loudly he confessed as she stuffed the last bite of waffles in her mouth. "I bought a Rosetta Stone. But I'm still on the first disc." The salesclerk at Barnes and Noble was wrong. Russian was not practically the same language as Spanish, as the young woman had claimed.

Hearing that, Natalia looked at him curiously.

His attempt at Russian was a mess. She did manage to pick out a few words that seemed to stick out.

Quickly she had finished her breakfast and drank most all of her juice. She said something in Russian that made his head jerk up. "Yes!" Connor reacted, "That was some of it. What does it mean? It's not a curse is it?"

Rolling her eyes, she flapped her usable arm, "Could you tear this off in the back?"

She then answered his question, "It means I love you. If you want I can teach you a curse to ward off the evil eye."

Thinking all of that over, he reached over to tear a bigger hole in the trash bag. It wasn't too difficult since it already had a hole in the bottom for her head. Careful not to smear the maple syrup, he wrapped up the black plastic up into a ball then went in the kitchen to toss it.  
Natalia pipped up in Russian.

"What's that mean?"

"To ward off the evil eye," she told him as she slid down off the stool. A few adjustments of her skirt and tights later she was ready to go. Natalia made sure her tie was perfect then shouted, "I'm ready!" She then looked around a mumbled, "Where the hell did my shoes go…"

"The shiny black ones?"

Natalia nodded, blond ponytail bobbing.

"I saw them in front of the entertainment center."

"Oh right," she muttered then set off for the living room. A string of Russian words he'd heard Neva mutter when stuck in traffic came from the child.

Not long passed before a few noises came from the living room.

Connor sipped the hot tea and then remembered Natalia had one functional arm.

Hastily he put the mug down and walked out into the living room where Natalia was seated on the floor. Neva had returned and was bent over tying the laces. The black skirt she had on was knee length. Black tights with lines running up the back of her calves up beneath the fabric caught his attention.

There was something about those lines that pleased him to no end. Bent down, Neva's skirt was stretched against her legs, allowing his eagle eyes to spot the slight ridge from garters he knew she had on beneath the skirt. When she stood up the fabric loosened, hiding the lingerie.

After a moment she noticed Connor standing there watching.

Shoes on, Natalia hopped up and went to go get her backpack.

Approaching Connor she pecked him on the cheek, "You should go back to bed. One of us should get to sleep in one day this week."

Seeing her red lips, he knew there would be a lipstick smudge on his cheek.

Connor found himself unsure what to say, especially after Natalia helped him out with the Russian.

He reached out to grab her hand in his. "Let me know when you're done in your meeting. I'm on call today. So we could go do something." A few hours of sleep and a hot shower under that spectacular showerhead would help him think about what to say next. Or what not to say. Connor was well aware that she knew he knew no Russian. He had just mastered his numbers and was working on the alphabet. It wasn't like she'd said those things to him in English. That had to mean something. He had all morning to figure it out too.


	27. Chapter 27

Neva was greatly concerned when she returned back to her apartment with good news.

Connor was acting squirrely.

Oh sure, at first he'd been perfectly normal.

It was around noonish, so when she suggested food he mentioned a place that had a significantly more casual dress code then what she had on. So she went to change while he checked his emails. When she returned in her finest celebratory jeans in a denim dark enough to make her eyes pop, he was significantly agitated.

By the time they arrived at the restaurant, she suspected trouble was afoot. His nervous behavior was comparable to that of her brother Alexei's whenever he accidently impregnated someone.

When he ordered chicken at a place nationally known for their ribs, she knew decisive action had to be taken because she wasn't sharing her award winning lunch. Anthony Bourdain had raved about the ribs she intended to devour. No one was going to ruin her congratulatory meal.

Around the time his water and her soda showed up, she leaned back in her booth and crossed her arms.

Granted she was sticking to the plastic booth. But she could only deal with one problem at a time and Connor wasn't looking her in the eye. Being a Vasilieva, she had absolutely no issue causing a scene in public. "What is it?" She wanted to know, "Tell me you're not married."

Taken aback by the words out of her mouth, Connor's gaze jerked her way in surprise.

"If you're married I'm going to have to hideously maim you."

"I'm not married," he frowned rather severely at her in offense of her statement. Then realizing he had not been the best lunch companion, he rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. It was a tad sticky too. "Can I run something by you?"

She made a 'by all means' gesture.

Numerous televisions in the establishment as well as a large lunch crowd ensured a degree of privacy. If anyone wanted to eavesdrop, they would have to take a seat beside one of them in the booth they inhabited.

He was unsure how to bring up the subject. Considering how his previous career change had affected things with Sam months ago. Connor decided to be vague but honest. He wouldn't mention the email. "I've been considering starting a cardiac fellowship."

Neva had no reaction.

Well that wasn't entirely true. One of her eyebrows rose up as if waiting for the real bad news to follow. When she did answer, it was not the response he expected.

"Ok. So?"

Thinking maybe she didn't fully grasp what he was telling her, he further explained, "If I decide to do one I'll be busier than I am now."

Neva looked pained.

She then grabbed her beverage. "That's it? You didn't knock someone up too, did you?"

Beginning to get a little annoyed, Connor made considerable effort to keep his composure in check. After all there was a fork and knife mere inches away from her and he'd seen her throw knives with frightening accuracy in the past. "This is completely work related Neva. I wanted to run this by you first. If this is going to be a deal breaker for you, then I'll think it over. This isn't a career verses you sort of thing and I don't want you to feel excluded."

A horrified look crossed over her face. She could not believe the words that had come forth from his mouth. Absolute disbelief consumed her and one of her shoes was soundly stuck to something on the floor under the table too.

Neva's free hand went up after she sipped the bubbly beverage. She didn't even try to censor herself. "Hold on with the feelings there for a second. Connor…I think you vastly overestimate my devotion towards the medical profession, and underestimate my ability to entertain myself when you're not around."

When he began to speak about a possible fellowship, she silenced him with a wave of her right hand. Two rings glittered on it that he'd noticed back in the apartment.

"By all means, if you want to apply for a fellowship, go forth with my blessing."

He didn't seem convinced, "You're sure."

"Connor," she began, trying her darnedest to cross her legs beneath their table. "Not only did I lead a very full life before we…reconnected, but we're in this line of work for two very different reasons. You have to fulfill some sort of a need that is not being met if you're looking at a cardiac fellowship. Now I despised every minute of psych rotation. However, I realize that this is not purely professional or academic no matter how much you would like to label it as such. And I'm going to go along with it because I know exactly what this means to you. I'm just doing this work because it pays enough to support my spending habit and Natalia until I can retire in quasi-luxury someplace far away and warm. It's interesting to me. That's it. I have no higher calling. Please don't feel the need to worry about me being in any way put out in a professional capacity. Plus, I'll still make more then you. So we're good."

"Really," he didn't look convinced. "That's it? After all your hard work you can't dig a little deeper?"

Making a face she shrugged, "It got me out. I'm not a Russian baby making machine so there is that…but no. I'm not looking to break any ground. I'm just looking to fulfill the terms of my contract and keep as many people alive as medically possible. You can be the careerist."

Finding this new side to her a bit unsettling, he shifted in his seat. Sure he was glad deep down there wouldn't be any conflicts. He had never once asked Neva about why she got into medicine. She was right too. His reasons for becoming a doctor were complex and the fellowship was a jumble of psychologically intricate reasons, actions and reactions having to do with him, David and in a unfortunate way, his past and family. The fact he was so transparent unsettled him.

As a child would poke at something foreign that they found outside with a stick. Connor slouched down in his booth. Crossing his arms he brought up something David had told him. "Is that why you turned down the opening in the ED? David told me that Goodwin offered you a emergency medicine position."

"Oh he would," she muttered. "And yes, that is why. Unless someone is shooting at me…everyday aliments aren't that interesting to me. At least with a life-flight type of program I won't feel completely useless." Sighing she placed her hands on the table, palm down. "I know, I sound terrible." Her dark eyes looked across the table at him and she confessed, "I never thought I'd feel so out of place in my own country. I didn't take the ED job because I'm hoping that critical emergencies in a helicopter ambulance will somehow fill my void." Scrunching up her nose she added, "David thinks I should branch into a new field."

In that moment Connor knew that he'd certainly never have to compare Samantha and Neva again. He also knew that he was dealing with a mass tangle of issues just as multifaceted as his own, but in an entirely different package.

Reaching across the table he covered one of her hands with his. Unsure of what to say to that confession. As he did not feel that way. His assimilation back home had been comparably smooth. Other areas of his life had not been so seamless. He really found himself at a loss for words and could not believe he had ordered the chicken. When he did speak it was when he realized she was waiting for him to say something, anything.

"You know I adore you. Right?"

If she could hide behind Russian for the moment, he could play verbal musical chairs.

A forced smile flickered over her features.

"Connor…I feel the need to share something, because I don't want you to get the wrong impression."

For the second time in the space of an hour he felt sick to his stomach. First the email from the worlds fasted fellowship program and now whatever she was about to tell him.

"Oh don't make that face, it's not bad," she sighed with an added eye roll. "It's just, well, I've never dated anyone before. My longest relationship was a four day weekend with a very patriotic Marine. So I don't want you to think I'm not…committed. You know, to whatever it is that we're now doing since we're no longer friends."

To further cement her statement as a young college aged waiter dropped two red plastic baskets of food, she hastily added. "I'm not the world's best person. But I am loyal and I'll support you no matter what it is you decide to do with your fellowship."

Connor squeezed her hand before he reminded her, "You were engaged."

She pulled back her hand so she could use both her knife and fork on the massive amount of ribs. A small part of her was glad she ordered the full rack when she saw the way Connor frowned at his pulled chicken. "That was arranged. I was eight years old when that was decided. I've never been on a date in my life."

All attention on the chicken was gone.

In utter disbelief he laughed. She looked at him curiously but her expression remained the same.

"You're serious?"

After she gently removed a significant amount of BBQed meat from a rib, she speared it, then looked at it longingly. "Yep. I wasn't raised to be a girlfriend. I was raised to be a wife. My fiancé had no need to take me out on a date and I've been too busy otherwise." A moment of thought passed before she nodded, "I've never been taken out by a guy who wanted to get in my pants, or that bought me flowers and dinner. Unless you count the time I partied with those Navy SEALS in Norfolk. But that was for a retirement party and I didn't get anything more than one of their dress hats, a sword and to be their designated driver."


	28. Chapter 28

"So the wedding has been called off." Olya sighed loudly over the other end of Neva's cell phone. "The bride went into labor and I completely blame you. I cannot believe you didn't tell me there was money on this…I could have won! I saw that woman yesterday and there was no way she would have made it to the wedding."

Rolling her eyes upwards, Neva motioned for Natalia to hit the button for their floor in the elevator.

Having just been able to finish lunch with Connor before his phone went off, she'd spent a good amount of time shopping before she went to pick Natalia up at school. A little bit of retail therapy was always good for the soul. And after her week, she had needs that needed to be met with a new pair of pumps and other items.

After that a quick trip to Target was essential to pick up items for Natalia's science project. Four things were on the list which turned into a cart full of items. It was Target after all. Totally out of her hands.

Before Neva knew it, she had bags on both arms and her phone pressed against her ear with her shoulder. "I'm sure you will endure," she remarked, shifting a few bags over onto another arm to allow circulation back.

Natalia pressed the button and the elevator doors closed with a ding, which Olya heard.

"You're home," the woman inquired.

Neva sagged against the back of the elevator, "Yeah. Why don't you come down? I'm going to start cooking dinner and Natalia has a project for school to work on tonight."

There was a pause.

Olya then inquired, "Will your doctor be there?"

Neva watched Natalia occupy herself by discreetly pulling whatever she had stuffed up in her cast out. She had noticed on the ride over that Natalia was doing her best to pull something out of her cast. However, she didn't quite have it in her to ask questions. Mostly because her long nose hemostats were in the apartment, which would be her preferred tool to dig out whatever it was.

"No," she answered, "He got called in."

As the elevator went up, Neva couldn't help but feel a little better about things and not just because the week was almost over. Things felt different, settled almost. Her mind wasn't running with thoughts about things that could happen. No matter how much she was unsure about how she felt about her own future, there was direction for a change. She had a path. Things weren't completely in flux.

"Ok…" Olya cooed. "I'll be down in a minute. I just painted my toenails and I don't want to smear the nail polish. What's for dinner?"

Neva spent the rest of the elevator ride eyeing Natalia, digging her keys from her pocket and explaining to Olya that pesto was totally different from guacamole, and neither were poisonous. By the time she and Natalia exited the elevator she was considerably irritated.

Natalia had half her hand in her cast as Neva got their door unlocked. Olya had begun to inquire about what sort of beverages Neva had in her fridge, when the door popped open.

Neva never realized that none of the locks on her door were secured.

Nor did she catch the slight movement inside her apartment when she crossed the threshold.

No, Neva's attention was focused on the two most important women in her life. Bags in hand she managed to point at her niece, "Quit picking at whatever you got stuck in there…we are not going to the hospital tonight. Do you…"

Natalia's bright eyes widened and a scream came from her lips.

By the time her Aunty looked up, something big and heavy crashed down over her head in a painful, blinding explosion of ceramic.

XXXIXXXIXXXIXXX

Henry 'Hank' Voight had just unwrapped the sandwich that would be his dinner, when his phone buzzed on a pile of papers on his desk. Reports from the lab that he had read over half a dozen times. His desk was covered with papers from various cases that were in various states. Some were open cases, others were closed cases but heading to court, while others were new and waiting to be looked over.

Therefore, he seriously considered letting the incoming call go to voicemail.

However, he couldn't do it.

Voight couldn't explain it. It was just a feeling, a hunch as they called it.

Something told him that he needed to answer the call.

Reaching over he peered at the screen to see that dispatch was calling him. Weird, but it had happened on the odd occasion. So he swiped and answered it. A little bit of curiosity blooming.

It was a 911 Dispatcher.

"Sergeant Voight?"

"Yes," he answered, suspecting the sandwich would have to wait.

"There is an active 911 call to an open case of yours. The caller has specifically requested you by name…"

His sandwich went in the trash when the dispatcher told him the address.

"…two other calls have been placed by neighbors and officers have been dispatched. The caller is a young girl who reported that she and her aunt surprised a home intruder. The suspect is a white male, middle aged, armed and has an eye patch."

Voight smiled, his hunches were never wrong.

IIIXIIIXIIIXIIIXIIIXIII

Olya would have heard the fight even if she hadn't heard it start over the phone.

From on her couch where she had been watching a new episode of Snapped, she had heard everything before Neva's call had disconnected. Being one floor up she easily heard Natalia's screaming. Followed by sounds of property being destroyed from the floor directly beneath her with no difficulty.

Having spent her formative years on the streets of Moscow, Olya knew that their personal nightmare had returned. She was not about to let him have his way with her family yet again.

All concerns about her wet nail polish forgotten.

Olya leapt from the couch in her silk pantsuit, pearls and ran through her apartment with purpose.

On her way out she grabbed a golf club from the bag Ivan had left that week.

For the first time in the decade that she had lived in the building she took the stairs. Moving faster than she ever had in her life she suspected, she flew down the stairs with Ivan's seven-iron in hand. Unholy vengeance was the only thing on her mind.

When Olya exploded from the stairwell door, she collided with one of the neighbors who had a cellphone to his ear.

Sounds of a violent fight came through the open apartment door, screams too.

Painful screams.

Something glass broke, wood cracked and a howl came out.

At that, Olya went in, golf club over her shoulder like a club.

A scene of pure violence took Olya by surprise. On the floor in the entranceway was Sergei. Sergei was not moving. However Sergei was the least of Olya's concerns and she continued on in her journey. Furniture was broken. Holes were in the walls. Pictures were knocked down. Even the TV had a hole in it.

Blood was everywhere.

If Olya didn't know any better, she would have assumed she had entered a war zone. Blood was splattered on the walls, smeared on the floor and had even made it onto the ceiling.

From what she could hear, the fight was in the dining room.

A bloodcurdling scream made the hairs on Olya's arm rise.

Raising the golf club she stormed the room ready to defend Neva with her very life if it came to that and the sight that awaited her was horrifying.

Olya swung the club and regretted it almost instantly.

The person on top of the screaming figure, pinning the helpless individual that could be heard out in the hallway was Neva. With one knee in the back of her assailant and his arms pulled tightly up behind him at a obviously painful angle, Neva had subdued the man who had broken her favorite vase over her head.

Olya swung Ivan's seven iron which hit Neva upside her head with a sound thud.

Olya's screams of horror echoed through the apartment way before her lover's grown daughter hit the dining room floor.

Golf club in hand she climbed over the man who had finally stopped his own terrified shrieks. When Olya shook Neva, she found that the younger woman was most certainly unconscious. All of the blood had come from her it seemed too. Blood stained Neva's hair, ran down her neck and seeped into her t-shirt.

She was bleeding from her arm as well.

"Neva," she spoke firmly, shaking her roughly. Louder she called her name a second time and was not successful in rousing Ivan's daughter.

Olya knew in that moment she would never hear the end of this.

When she glanced up, she noticed that the man was on the move and she didn't know where Natalia was.

Neva was breathing, so she felt comfortable leaving her on the floor.

Gripping her club, she got up and hurried after the man. She managed to get a few good whacks in before he made it out of the apartment. Judging from his obviously painful limp, the way he held his side and the distinctive crunching noises from when her golf club made contact, she knew he was seriously injured.

Getting one more hard whack to the man's back, she managed to chase him out. After which Olya quickly locked the door behind him and began to shout for Natalia.


	29. Chapter 29

Will couldn't believe it.

Maggie had told him that the incoming patient had been injured in a fight after surprising a burglar. Rescue had radioed ahead that the patient suffered a head injury and lost blood, which made him think about a blood transfusion. Luckily the family had provided the EMTs with that information at the scene.

Yet when he got a good look at his patient, he recognized her immediately. Even through all the blood, the beginnings of dark bruises and a knot on the side of her head.

You never really thought someone you knew would get wheeled into the ED.

To further improve the final hours of his shift, Voight and his partner, Detective Dawson, were mere steps behind arguing with paramedics. By sheer chance he just happened to catch Voight's gaze and the police sergeant approached like a man on a mission.

Inwardly Will swore with vehemence.

"You need to wake her up. I need to speak with her."

"You need to go wait in the waiting area," Will told him, hurrying over to the incoming stretcher. His brain began to immediately pick apart what his eyes took in to determine what needed attention first. Radiology was the first thing that came to mind. Glancing over at April who helped push the stretcher into an exam area. "Let's order a CT Scan of the head." When April lifted Neva's dangling wrist onto the stretcher he got a better look at it, "How deep is that laceration?"

"I want her clothes and shoes and jewelry too," Voight chimed in.

Will looked up to see Maggie was already on her way over.

A surprised noise came from April that caught Will's attention. Her dark eyes glanced up to meet his, "This'll need to be closed up before she goes to CatScan. Bob will lose his mind if another patient bleeds all over his machine again."

Optimism struck.

Bob the CT Tech was working. Which meant he could get Neva to near the front of the line depending on who else was in the hospital.

It was right around then that a noise came from Neva. A tensing of her body followed by a fluttering of her eyes, then closure of them at the lights. Lights that were interminably bright. Far too bright. A moment or two later she realized where she was and that she had a spectacular headache, was slightly nauseous and could hear constant buzzing in her ear. Thus leading her to believe she had a pretty magnificent concussion.

If only she could remember how she got it.

The last thing Neva could remember was throwing a cell phone into her television, which didn't seem right. She had a strong suspicion that there were extenuating circumstances, but she could not seem to summon them forth from the recesses of her brain. Which further cemented her belief that she had somehow concussed herself.

A bright thin light was shone in her eyes and a soft confident voice belonging to a woman asked her a few questions.

"Ma'am can you tell me you name? Do you know what day it is?"

Neva swore, "I never know what day it is…oh God I think I'm going to be sick." When she reached up to cover her mouth with her hand, she got a good look at her arm and all the blood. Her very world spun on its axis in that moment. Right before the blackness yet again swarmed all around her, claiming her with minimal effort.

For some odd reason, she swore she could hear Voight's voice in the background.

However she wrote it off to the concussion.

Again darkness took her.

When Neva woke up again, she heard humming.

A soft mechanical humming that her brain instantly recognized as a CatScan machine. Soft whirring noises were followed by clicks, then more hums along with the ringing in one of her ears. Her right ear she determined after brief discernment.

She opened her eyes to see the machine she'd never observed from a patients viewpoint.

It seemed smaller for some reason.

Knowing that she needed to be still, she didn't move.

Plus she wasn't entirely sure that she wouldn't blackout again. When that didn't happen immediately or shortly after, she took some internal inventory and came to notice that her arm hurt. Well, her wrist actually was moderately uncomfortable. Last she'd seen it'd been covered with blood and had a gnarly gash in it. Neva found herself wondering just how deep the injury had been and judging from the way her arm felt, it had required stitches. There was a distinctive tightness that alerted her to sutures and many of them.

When the machine began to move she remained very still, unsure if she would experience nausea from the concussion or motion. She was quite relieved when she remain lucid and didn't get sick. Tentatively her good arm reached up so she could feel around at the aching side of her head. A few cautious pats later confirmed her suspicions.

Movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention.

Slowly she turned her head to see a middle aged bearded man in mint green scrubs push a stretcher her way. Bob, according to his nametag.

"Good. You're up. I'll let the forensic nurse know."

A groan at the thought of getting poked, prodded, scraped, and photographed did not make Neva feel any better. She could feel her clothes sticking to her from her own itchy dried blood. This was not improving her night at all.

A few jerks later found her on a stretcher. Not long after, Bob wheeled her out of the cavernous room containing the big machine.

She watched him make a few notes on a chart which he stuck at the foot of her stretcher somewhere, then he went back into CatScan with promises that someone would be by to get her. Neva couldn't say she was particularly thrilled by that news. She'd rather spend the night in the hallway.

Sure enough, it was a pretty busy hallway.

Lifting her head, she watched staff and patients went by at various speeds. An elderly man in a wheelchair was wheeled into the CatScan room next. More than a few people passing by cast a few curious looks her way.

Neva could only imagine how horrible she looked.

Rolling her eyes, she found was quite painful, so she just laid back down on the stretcher and covered her eyes with her hands. While the lights weren't painfully blinding as they were in the ED. They weren't exactly a delight to look up into. Her head pounded ruthlessly. She couldn't get rid of the taste or smell of blood. There was a numb tingling in her wrist and she was almost positive that a few of her ribs were bruised. Having bruised, fractured and broken a significant amount of them, she was leaning towards bruised.

From on the stretcher she thought back as hard as she could. She was mildly curious how it was that she found herself in her current predicament.

Needless to say, she was shocked when she heard a familiar voice.

"Neva…dare I even ask?"

One hand moved so she could peek at whom she suspected was David. And sure enough, there he was, in his heavy winter coat and knit hat. Obviously on his way home. He approached the stretcher with concern on his features.

"It's a little bit fuzzy…the specifics," she whispered.

His head cocked to the side and she knew he was looking at the bump, "I can imagine so. Did you go in yet?"

Afraid to nod she whispered, "Bob just wheeled me out here."

Downey was indeed glad. He wanted to take a peek at the scans. On the side of Neva's head was a lump that impressed even him. She was already bruising and come morning he expected her to have a black eye, plus some bruising around her temple and lower on her face. Although not from whatever had hit her causing said contusion. She'd obviously been in a fight. Stitches peeked out from her hairline where blood had long since dried.

"I'll be right back," he said before disappearing down the hall, where she assumed the door to the control room of CatScan was located.

She wasn't wrong, David stepped into the computer filled room to see Bob doing paperwork on a clipboard. Bob glanced up at the sight of him and David was even more pleased to see numerous pictures of a head scan still on the big monitor.

"Is that for the lady out in the hall you just did?"

Bob nodded, then looked down to the patient history he was flipping through while one of his techs got the feisty old man up on the table. "Sure is…she one of yours?"

"Family friend," David explained as he knelt down for a good close look. He even pulled his glasses out of his coat. The two men were quiet until David pointed to the screen, "Could you blow that one up?"

Bob reached for the mouse and David reached for the control room's phone.

Pressing the button for surgery, he prayed someone answered. After seven rings a woman's voice tiredly answered, "Surgery."

David didn't have to ask who it was, he only had one question. "Did Doctor Rhodes leave yet?"

"Not yet," came the voice over the phone.

"Good. Have him swing by CatScan on his way out. Something is here he'll want to see."


	30. Chapter 30

Connor had almost made it out and to be honest, he entertained the thought of pretending he hadn't heard Doctor Patel shout after him. It wouldn't take him long to swing by Radiology. Plus Bob was working. Bob was always pretty entertaining. What he did not expect to see was Voight.

Voight only came by the hospital when trouble was a'foot.

From where Connor stood, he could just make out a pair of Uggh boots on a stretcher around a hospital corner. From where Connor stood, he caught the tail end of an unhappy Voight doing his best to keep his proverbial shit intact. There was just something about the expression on the man's face that stopped Connor in his tracks.

No one else was around.

Surely someone in the hospital needed the patient who had been elected by the universe to be the recipient of Voight's irritation.

"…and I know you know where they are. All you have to do is tell me where they are. No one will ever know it was you. You have a head injury. There is absolutely no way you can be held accountable for what you never said to me."

Stiffly, the patient shifted in the stretcher, one Uggh lifted up while the other slid down.

"Don't lie. Think about all the people who need closure. You can give these people a sense of peace. And don't worry about getting in trouble. You were on your way here when the abduction happened, so you can hardly be held accountable."

Then came the patients voice, "How the hell should I know where they went? How do you even know it was my brother? Lots of people with questionable driving skills drive Porsche's and hit pedestrians. This is Chicago."

Connor recognized that voice. Trouble was most definitely afoot.

Voight didn't seem to notice, or care, about anyone overhearing him. His mouth tightened as he yet again tried to make her see reason. Whether Neva was being intentionally unhelpful, or she was still a bit out of it, he wasn't entirely sure. "Witnesses at the scene reported a man that looked very much like your brother, Uri, getting out of the Porsche and stuffing your attacker in the trunk. It's not a stretch to assume they would take my suspect off somewhere! You know what they're capable of."

Just managing to come around the corner, Connor got a good look at Neva pushing herself into sitting position. All so she could point at Voight. She however slipped a bit and only managed to catch herself by gripping the rail of the stretcher with a bloody hand. Which only just kept her from going over the edge of the stretcher and taking a nosedive down on the floor.

"Believe it or not," she seethed, "I make an effort to not know what those asshats are doing. They tell me less then they tell you! You of all people should know that! Hell, with the amount of snitches you have, you should have a better idea of where they are then me! And you know what else…"

Voight never found out what else it was that Neva wanted him to know. Doctor Rhodes appeared to his left and looked mad enough to eat glass. It took him by surprise. He had never seen the man so heated.

Before he could say anything, Doctor Rhodes informed him in no uncertain terms that the game was no longer a'foot. Connor put a hand on his witness's shoulder to push her back into the safety of the stretcher, "You need to leave before I call security. How many times do you have to be told not to harass the patients?"

Voight would have none of it, "She is a material witness and I have every right…"

Connor would have none of that either, slipping between the officer of the law and stretcher, he brought himself up to his full height. "I don't care. You need to go find another way to track down your suspect."

Behind him, Neva sagged back down on the stretcher. Suddenly finding the fiery shooting in her wrist that had all those stitches particularly unbearable. Where had that been her whole life?

Unable to simply take one more second of it she snapped. It was as if she could feel whatever it was deep down actually break. "For the love of God…just go! Try that stupid restaurant. It's like their Batcave. Someone is bound to be there that you can interrogate."

Sensing that it was the closest thing to an answer that he was going to get, Voight reached for his phone.

Pointedly ignoring Connor, he began to back down the hall and peer around Connor. "I'll check up on you tomorrow."

Neva scowled, snarling after him She felt like some sort of mangled wild animal. "Not if Doctor Halstead releases me tonight when your nurse is done!" More was on the tip of her tongue. Connor prevented her from saying more to Voight's back as the man hurried off. Adjusting her back onto the stretcher, he checked her hand to see where the smears of blood had come from, seeing the bandage on her wrist was clean his mind raced.

"You're not going anywhere tonight…" he murmured, "Where is this blood coming from?"

Fidgeting on the increasingly uncomfortable stretcher, she looked at her hands. A few scrapes and cuts could have been any of the culprits. Quietly she told him, "I can't wash my hands till the forensic nurse scrapes my nails."

Understanding, he leaned over to get a better look at her state. "What happened?"

"I'm not entirely sure," she whispered. "He was in the apartment, I think."

Dark eyebrows meeting, Connor leaned down closer, resting his arms on the rail. "What is it? Why are you whispering? What's wrong other then all of this…"

A bit nervously she lifted her head to look around for other people.

"Is it the forensic nurse?" He asked, "If your father has the psycho, then this whole thing may never even go to trial. Don't worry about that. Don't even let your mind wander there."

She frowned and sagged back down. Grimacing at the thought of the upcoming forensic exam. "My ear hasn't stopped ringing."

"Did you get a CatScan?"

Unable to get comfortable from the increasing tenderness in her side, she yet again shifted her legs to adjust her position. "Yep. David is in there with someone named Sam."

Both of Connor's eyebrows rose, "Abrams?"

No longer able to shrug she sighed, "I don't know…why?"

"Sam Abrams is our attending neurosurgeon."

The game was back a'foot.

Her eyes narrowed at him, "Get in there and go find out if they're talking about me, or their poker game. If that was the final straw and I have to buy a hearing aid I'm going to want to hear it from you."

"Do you have your phone?"  
She frowned at him in bewilderment.

"The forensic nurse might take it. Do you want Voight in possession of all your numbers?"

Some of that was true. Granted he wanted her phone for strictly ulterior motives, he knew the magic words. When she told him where it was, he reached down to pull it from her back pocket. Moderately surprised to see it had survived the struggle. Discreetly he slid it into the pocket of his scrubs.

Neva began to yank a ring off her finger, "Put this in your pocket too. Voight said they would take my rings for tissue samples."

Connor eyed it distastefully, "I'll buy you a new one. The stone is gone and something is stuck in it. Let Voight have it."

"It was my mother's," she softly confessed.

Without another word he took it. Serendipitously in time too. At that very moment in time a nurse in Disney Princess Scrubs appeared with two uniformed police officers. Connor's hand closed around what was left of the ring. And in a supportive sort of way that Doctor Phil completely approve of, he looked down at Neva. "I'll go speak with Sam and give your family a call. Then I'll come look for you. Just relax and this will all be done soon."

"If you love me you'll have a toothbrush and toothpaste waiting for me," she told him, her mood plummeting at the sight of the nurse.

Connor watched her get pushed down the hall, before he went into the control room for CatScan where he greeted Bob, David and Sam with the always acceptable, "Gentleman."

All three of whom had been discussing their upcoming poker game as Connor grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on top of a cabinet. Using those to wrap up the broken ring before he slid it into his other pant pocket.

"How's our little ray of sunshine," David inquired from a wheeled chair beside Bob. Both chairs had the letters ICU sharpied on the back. A recent acquisition from upstairs on Bob's part.

"Hearing ringing in her ear apparently," Connor answered, taking a look at a chest of a very unhealthy elderly man on the big monitor.

Bob snorted at Connor's revelation.

David made a face and Sam stood from where he'd been leaning against a counsel with his arms crossed. "I'd be surprised if this woman's ears weren't ringing." The dark haired surgeon handed over a tablet that he'd previously been peeking at to Connor. "I don't see any bleeding. There is no fracture. Considering the injury, that amount of swelling is not abnormal. I'd suggest another scan of the head in the morning before she is discharged. So long as there are no complications tonight. In a day or so, the ringing should stop when the swelling goes down."

Connor looked over all the pictures Bob had taken.

David inquired of Bob, "What'd she get hit with?"

Bob's eyes remained on the various images before him, "According to the patient history from the ED, a seven iron. So have we decided what we're doing for food this week? I believe it's David's turn to pick."


	31. Chapter 31

Neva had finally managed to unwrap the white bandage that was wrapped around her arm. She wanted, nay, needed to get a good look at the numerous stitches on the soft skin of her wrist. Judging from the way it felt when she twisted her arm slowly, she figured there were a few dissolvable stitches inside too.

It had taken nearly an hour for the nurses to get busy with other patients. Thus allowing her to slip into the bathroom of her room unnoticed. No easy feat with the heart monitor wheeled in with her to avoid any beeping if she tampered with it, again.

She knew better, she really did.

Neva knew that she just needed to stay in bed and rest.

However she wasn't going to be getting any rest when the distinctive metallic smell of blood clung to her. A shower was out of the question due to all the stitches. She of all people knew that fun fact. All those stitches were the least of her problems in that moment. The iron smell had to go. Taking a seat on the side of the toilet, she rested her forehead against the cool porcelain sink. Once her head stopped spinning, she set out the bottle of rubbing alcohol and box of tissues she'd grabbed when the forensic nurse left the exam room.

Safely in her own hospital room for the night, she decided that action needed to be taken. Plus there was nothing else that she could possibly throw up, and dry heaving was killing her head.

Not surprisingly, the cool sink felt magnificent against her sweaty temple.

At a snail's pace she dabbed her wrist with the sharp smelling astringent. Cutting through the metallic smell, she actually savored the rubbing alcohol odor. It made the cuts and scrapes on her hands sting. Not that she cared. It was a small price to pay for getting rid of that smell of old dried blood. There could never be anything worse. In fact, it was almost soothing in a way. A gentle rhythmic beeping of her heart monitor paired with a cool tile floor beneath her barefeet.

And that was how Connor discovered her not too long into her task.

"You've got to be the world's worst patient," he sighed, taking in the entire scene before him.

A soft noise came from her in response.

Finding herself unable to lift her head and look up at him without the bathroom spinning, she told him. "I can't stand the smell anymore."

Completely understanding, he had to quick decide whether or not to put her to bed, or help out in the bathroom before putting her in the hospital bed. At least she had the decency to keep the monitor attached. He had to give her a brownie point or two. Stepping into the bathroom, he knelt down beside her and got a good look of all the brown stained balled up tissues in the trashcan.

It wasn't long before a few more tissues were tossed in the trash. Connor gave her the details of her scan. After which he helped her out of the Spartan bathroom and into the hospital bed.

Neva noticed a Target bag over on the wildly uncomfortable looking chair in the corner.

She knew she was in pretty gnarly shape, when she was unable to summon up a joke about him breaking her out of the hospital.

From her spot on the world's second most uncomfortable piece of furniture, Neva watched Connor pull a plastic tub of baby wipes. She'd never seen anything more touching. Well, up until he stood beside the bed and used almost every wipe in the plastic tub to get her hair as clean as possible. Eventually the smell of Pampers filled her senses.

"Did someone give you something for pain?"

"No, I didn't want anything," she replied, gingerly touching her damp hair. Neva considered herself dizzy enough as it was. When she rested her head back against the pillow, she could feel the room spin a moment longer. As if it were catching up with her before coming to a stop.

She closed her eyes for just a moment, or what felt like just a moment.

When Neva opened her eyes again the room was dark. She could feel a heavy weight on her legs and heard the distinctive sound of 'The Golden Girls.'

She lifted a heavy head from what the hospital considered a pillow. Neck craned uncomfortably, she was able to make out Connor's sleeping form seated on something at the foot of her bed. He was slumped over her ankles. Arms folded beneath his head. Dim light from the television mounted to the ceiling illuminating enough of him to make that out.

A crunching noise got her attention.

When she tilted her head to the side her world spun. A shooting pain lanced up her wrist as whatever had been used to numb the region had obviously worn off. Unable to prevent it, she collapsed back on the hospital bed.

David watched from his chair beside her bed, momentarily taking his eyes from the girls in Miami. Digging another Wheat Thin from the box, David greeted her with a pat on the back of her hand. "Do you like the girls?"

"Who doesn't," Neva answered groggily.

Finding the world was still a bit shaky, but not so violently unwieldly, she reached over and found herself softly holding Downey's hand.

After a while she dozed off like that, although every time she woke back up, her hand was still encased in his. Connor continued to sleep like the dead on her feet. Safe in the knowledge that she couldn't get out of bed again and fall, without waking him up.

When a particularly gnarly headache woke Neva up for the final time, 'The Golden Girls' were over. Replaced with a morning news program and David munching on the same box of crackers. When he noticed she had woken up he gestured at the television, "You're not going to believe this…want a cracker?"

"I want my masseur," she moaned.

Yet, she managed to summon up enough energy to glance up and see what had so completely captured his attention.

Neva was not disappointed.

Up on the television was one of Chicago's more recognizable news faces, whom at that moment she could not place for the life of her. She watched the early morning news show sometimes when getting Natalia up for school. But it was the news that caught her attention. There was absolutely no way she would be able to read the small news banner that slid by on the bottom of the screen, so she didn't even try. Fortunately she didn't need to. The news anchor seemed to be in disbelief, as she told the greater Chicago area that the Windy City Ripper had turned himself in, in the early morning hours. A married businessman and father of three had confessed to all of the Rippers murders, attacks and several that the police had only suspected him. Plus a few that they'd never linked to his alias.

Neva could not believe it. Her jaw dropped in shock.

Sure enough, there was video footage of Voight and his team leading the handcuffed man into the police station in the wee morning hours.

"He was an investment banker," David said as if that explained everything.

As the news anchor speculated Neva stared in astonishment. Yet nothing could have prepared her for the anchorwoman's next words. "It seems that late last night the Ripper, or as we now know him, Charles Westwood, had found his way into an area of the city known to many as Little Moscow. It is reported that he went into a restaurant known as 'Ivan's' and it was there that he had a conversation with the owner."

Neva felt the blood drain from her head. Had she not been horizontal, she would have collapsed.

"That's right Janette," a male co-anchor spoke up from beside her at their news desk. "I just returned from Little Moscow. I was able to speak with the entrepreneur. He was very open about how he was able to convince this man to come forward with the truth about his crime spree."

"Oh my God no…" Neva whispered.

"Really? What did he have to say about the Ripper? Because, if I recall correctly, Ivan Vasilieva, owner of 'Ivan's', is himself no stranger to law enforcement."

As if he had been dispatched by a holy force to go cover the latest event, the co-anchor made a thoughtful face. Then the silver haired newscaster responded, "Interesting you bring that up. Ivan Vasilieva was very frank about his past troubles with the law. He used his own struggles to help Charles Westwood see reason. Ivan believes that everyone is capable of reform and changing their lives. He also mentioned that he believed the families needed closure, and that he wanted to help facilitate that when he realized exactly who this man was that came in his restaurant."

Neva pulled her legs up to curl them up beneath her, in another attempt to get comfortable, while she listened to more of her father's alleged words of wisdom. All of which sounded wildly sketchy in her opinion.

Her father was the King of Sketchy.

Connor jerked awake at the motion.

His gaze went to her, then David and back to Neva as he blinked in a sleepy haze.

"Good morning," David greeted, cracker in hand.

Neva motioned for Connor to lie back down, "Everything's fine baby. Go back to sleep."

One of Downey's eyebrows rose. He said nothing. David watched Connor fold his arms and settle back into the position he'd been sleeping in most the night. When his protégés head was on his wrists and his eyes were shut, breathing become rhythmically steady, David did comment. "Oh to be young with a spine that could sleep like that for hours on end. He's sleeping on a stool. A stool. I would have slipped off hours ago and broken something."

When Neva saw an on-location reporter appear on screen with her brother Alexei, mic in hand, she could take no more. Glancing over at David she noticed a big Styrofoam cup on a table within arm's reach. "What's in there?"

David's eyes were glued to the TV. This was better than Maury. Alexei's detailed analysis of what happened began with, 'I shit you not dude.' So when he answered it was somewhat distractedly, "Do you have any stitches in your mouth?"

"No," she answered.

"Sprite from the cafeteria."

Neva reached for it, but he grabbed it first, then handed it to her so she didn't drop it. All while his eyes remained on the screen. Neva's brother was considerably more entertaining than he expected.

The Sprite was warm and not fizzy, but tasted better than anything on earth at that point in time.


	32. Chapter 32

Connor dozed on and off. But he finally decided that it was time to get up when he heard Doctor Downey and Neva talking downright conspiratorially about breakfast. Their voices were hushed so as not to travel outside the room where nurses would hear.

"I wouldn't eat that either. Eggs should never come in powered form."

"Are you sure you don't want it?"

"Positive. I have crackers. I couldn't eat that if I wanted…I'll just take your orange juice. You take this breakfast burrito. It has your favorites. Tomato, feta cheese and mushroom."

"You're the best."

"I know. You want me to open that soda for you?"

Connor lifted his head up to get a look at the two of them. Like two deer caught in a headlight, Neva and Downey stared at Connor. A burrito wrapped in tinfoil in Neva's bruised and battered hands. A can of Wild Cherry Pepsi in David's hands. After a moment, David popped open the can of soda before placing it down on the wheeled food table beside her hospital bed. A tray of questionable food on top. Connor shook his head disapprovingly before he stretched out his back and arms.

Patting her arm, David rose from his chair. "I'll be back. I need to go get ready for my treatment and track down Doctor Harris. Shift change should be done by now."

Neva began to unwrap the burrito with sore fingers. With absolutely no heat or anger she shot back, "Traitor." Followed with, "See you later comrade."

On his way out, David saluted her then walked off with intention towards the nurses station. After that she turned her attention back to the food. Finding her fingers aching the tinfoil defeated her and Neva found herself looking up for assistance. Without having to ask, Connor took a few steps then sat down on the edge of her bed. With far less difficulty he peeled the breakfast burrito free, then took a healthy bite. Neva frowned at him.

Mouth full, he leaned over to press his lips against a part of her face that wasn't bruised. Then he hopped off the bed and went into her bathroom. Neva wasn't at all surprised when he closed the door.

Mystery was very important in any relationship.

As she took small bites and chewed carefully. Only small bites, it hurt to open her mouth too wide. She changed the television channel to the Weather Channel. Finding that the food did not help her throbbing head or face. Nor did it help the last lingering feelings of queasiness. She wasn't hungry anymore though. A painful gnawing angry hunger had bothered at her all night long.

She'd only eaten a little less than half before she set it down on the table, and with both hands sipped the cold soda. A sharp stinging on the side of her mouth let her know that there was a bite, or cut inside.

Sounds of a toilet flushing and lots of water running from the sink let her know that Connor was alive and well in the bathroom. When he finally stepped out. he was still in his blue scrubs, hair and face wet from a thorough splashing. A minty smell hung around him too. "Are you done with that?"

Neva nodded, still holding her can of soda.

"Do you want some water instead?"

She frowned at him, "Do you want me to go through caffeine withdrawals too? I thought you liked me?"

Rolling his eyes, Connor strolled around the hospital bed and took a seat on the edge of the mattress. She scooted over as much as possible and patted the small spot beside her. She was not at all surprised when he very carefully eased himself into that spot, or when he grabbed the remainder of the burrito.

"You're ok? I'm not hurting you?"

Reaching over, she patted his thigh. "Just sit still and we'll be good." After one more sip of her caffeinated beverage she put it down, then sagged against him.

Clearly unentertained with the Weather Channel, he glanced down at the top of her head.

"Why is David out looking for whoever is attending this morning?"

Unimpressed with the whole situation she sighed, "He wants a X-ray ordered. He thinks I broke a few ribs. I think they're just bruised."

"Did you tell him that?"

"God no," she snorted then winced, sliding a hand over the ribs in question that were even more tender than yesterday. "He'll want a MRI and I want out of here ASAP."

"Worst patient ever," he told her between bites.

She didn't disagree.

In companionable silence the two sat side by side on the hospital bed.

Connor had just finished her breakfast and was debating if he wanted to get up to get water, or pop open the little carton of questionable milk product on her food tray. Pepsi at seven am was for the caffeine dependent.

A impeccably dressed male figure stepped into the room with a large arrangement of flowers.

Using his foot, he kicked the door shut then smiled winningly at the two of them.

Wearing an expensive blue suit that made his eyes pop, Alexei set down a flower arrangement on a small hospital table. It had cost more than he'd ever spent on flowers for a woman he wasn't trying to woo. Running fingers through his golden hair he then turned to greet his sister.

Alexei reacted to the sight of her before he could maintain his polished veneer. A gasp escaped from his lips and he stepped back almost instantaneously.

"Oh…oh my…good morning Neva…you look great for someone who got whacked with a seven iron."

Neva greeted her older brother with a one fingered salute that she immediately regretted. But she would have done again, it was worth the pain. Connor made a unimpressed face, "Who's that?"

"My dumbass brother."

"Alexei," he corrected, taking a few steps so he could reach out to shake Connor's hand. "You're Neva's doctor friend?"

A bit put off, Connor glanced down at Neva. In Arabic he remarked, " _I thought we decided not to be friends anymore._ "

Neva didn't even glance up from her intense inspecting of her fingers. " _He's knocked four of his friends up this year. Our definition of the word friend is very different from his definition of a friend_." That was followed with, " _Does that look like it's on the way to being infected to you?_ "

From the face he made, it did indeed.

Infection.

" _Damn_ ," she swore, " _You know what that means?_ "

From the face he made, he did indeed.

Antibiotics.

" _I'll stop by the drug store later_ ," he grimaced.

Condoms.

Having enough of that, Alexei snapped his fingers to get both their attention. "Listen up you two. We need to get on the same page. Voight and his minions are on their way to get your statement Neva."

Neva made a face.

Suddenly it all came together like puzzle pieces.

Glancing up at Connor she narrowed her eyes, "So that's what you did with my phone."

He said nothing in defense and not only because her brother spoke up. "Hey, forget him. When Voight gets here, tell him that you don't remember much at all about what happened last night. We've handled the rest."

Unable to summon up energy to be offended, she just groaned.

"We've consulted the lawyer," Alexei added confidently.

"Which lawyer," she wanted to know.

"Harrison and Niles, you remember them from Uri's trial. Right?"

Hearing the name of those two, Neva felt slightly less skeptical. They were two of Chicago's finest criminal defense attorneys. Finally, with a sigh she told her older brother. "You don't need to worry. Last night is still a little fuzzy."

Pleased Alexei grinned, "Perfect. Stick with that story."

Little did he know it wasn't far from the truth. The very last thing Neva could solidly remember was getting out of the elevator with Natalia. A couple hazy bits of memory of a scuffle, she could just barely recall it. Although she was certain that someone had been in her apartment. Most of her time in the hospital was a little fuzzy as well.

A ding came from Alexei's pants.

Quickly he fished three iPhones out and after looking at each screen paused at the one in a blue case. "Dad's done giving his statement. He's waiting on Olya and Natalia to finish up before going home." Glancing up at the two of them he added, "Oh by the way, your apartment is a crime scene. Uri tried to get Natalia's backpack, but no luck. Maybe you could get Voight to hand it over Connor? You're a doctor. You ooze authority. Work some magic. Or at the very least, set him up with a nurse or two."

Taken back by that last bit, Connor glanced at Neva with a bewildered look on his face.

Maybe it was her concussion, or the horrible way she felt.

Neva just gave up all pretenses of civility.

A sigh came from her, "Don't look at me like that. We have different mothers."

Alexei inquired after sliding his phones back into the appropriate pockets. In total seriousness, "Dude…so I've been watching 'Grey's Anatomy.' Is it really like that around here? I'd totally go to medical school if it's true."


	33. Chapter 33

Almost two weeks later:

"Can I ask you something April?"

April glanced at Connor, who was seated beside her in the upstairs classroom. She was equally unhappy about their situation. On the other side of her was an wildly displeased Doctor Choi and beside him, Halstead, whom was the recipient of all their dirty looks.

"Sure," was her response as more hospital employees came into the classroom.

Dark glances were sent Will's way when they noticed him near the back of the room.

Hospital Mandated Sensitivity Class was why they all found themselves not at home after clocking out.

"If you were going out on a formal date with Tate…where would he take you?"

April looked closely at Connor, eyebrows raised. "A formal date?"

Even Choi took interest in their conversation.

"You know. A date date," Connor explained.

When April raised her brows further in questioning. Connor elaborated "A date with roses. Somewhere dress up nice."

As if on cue Neva strolled into the room.

Heels slapping angrily on the cool tile floor. Large handbag over her shoulder and almost free of all the bruises on her face. Makeup covered the few stragglers. Tired and not thrilled about the class, she headed to the front of the room with a to-go cup of hot tea in hand. Connor didn't glance her way. Having had lunch with her earlier that day, he knew the black pantsuit she had on was the one she'd bought the day before since her apartment was still a crime scene. Voight promised though that any day now it would be released.

April began to list restaurants that were on the top of her list for fancy and great food. Both Choi and Connor made mental notes of her recommendations.

"Those places are kind of expensive," Will remarked.

"And that's why you're still single," Choi shot back. Connor laughed as April shook her head in disapproval at their red headed coworker.

Resting an elbow on the table, Will pointed at Connor, "What are you laughing at? From the looks of that." A gesture was made to the front of the room where Neva stood talking with Doctor Sam the Neurosurgeon. Both of whom were signing into the class. "You might be in the same boat as me by the time this class is over."

All four heads looked over to see the two talking rather animatedly. Then taking a seat on two open chairs in the second row, said chairs were right beside one another.

April made a noise, "Please, he's not putting the moves on her. I can tell from here. Sam's as annoyed about being here as she is."

"He's probably complaining about it right now," Choi added as they watched the dark haired professional tell Neva something with an eye roll.

"Or he could be hitting on her," Will chimed in.

Shaking her head, April gestured as Neva said something to Sam. A look of surprise slowly entered her features. "Oh no, no. She's just finding out why we're all here."

"Watch…you'll be able to see the moment Sam tells her," Choi added.

For not the first, or last time that day, Will groaned, "It's not my fault."

Connor crossed his arms and sighed a sigh of eternal patience, "No one's blaming you."

"Nope," Ethan mirrored.

"I mean really…" April sighed, reaching for her thermos. "…anyone in this building could have violated hospital policy by disregarding a DNR."

Will then leaned on the table to tell all three of his ED Coworkers, "Sam wouldn't do something like that. He's not a gossip."

From the looks on their faces, Ethan, April and Connor were not convinced.

April then patted both Choi and Rhodes on the arms, "Oh. Oh! Here it is. He's telling her…watch."

All four of their heads watched the scene near the front of the classroom.

Sam pointed their way, his finger straight in Will's direction as he told something to Neva. Her face morphed from mild interest to absolute horror, her jaw even dropped. Obviously she was beyond shocked at the revelation. Sam then nodded in confirmation.

"And he told her," April sighed.

Quickly Will rose from his chair, intent on explaining his side to the newest hospital employee. "I'll be right back."

April glanced at Connor, "Is Doctor Downey coming?"

Choi actually laughed at the question.

"I can't say what he said about this class in polite society," Connor repeated, diplomatically. "The long and short of it however, was his questioning if the hospital would fire him. He's calling their bluff."


End file.
